Half Magic
by ChristineX
Summary: Complete. Five years after Voldemort's defeat, Hermione Granger comes to Hogwarts in order to solve a mystery that threatens the school's very existence. Complicating things is her new partner in the investigation -- none other than Severus Snape!
1. Chapter 1

I'm back with another Hermione/Snape story! This was actually written for RenitaLeandra over on LiveJournal -- she bid on a story from me for the Support Stacie auction (to raise money for a gal who has breast cancer and no health insurance). Renita is graciously allowing me to post the story here. It's actually complete, but I'll be posting a new chapter every few days.

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I

The lights of Hogwarts castle glittered against the snow. Hermione had never really expected to return here; her life lay elsewhere these days. But the urgent summons had come from Minerva McGonagall just this morning, and Hermione knew it was her duty to respond.

_I must consult with you on a matter of utmost importance_, Professor McGonagall had written. _Kingsley has already approved your reassignment to Hogwarts for as long as necessary. Come at once._

It was Hermione's responsibility, as an investigator with the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, to go where her superiors sent her, but she couldn't help feeling a slight trickle of unease as she lifted her valise and trudged uphill through the snow to the castle's entrance. This obviously wasn't a matter for the Aurors, or no doubt Harry or Ron would have been sent in her place. However, the urgency of McGonagall's request couldn't be denied. Hermione was the Department's top investigator, despite her youth. Her presence here wouldn't have been requested unless there was a very good reason for doing so.

It had been a long time. Five years, to be precise. Unlike Harry and Ron, she'd felt compelled to return to Hogwarts after Voldemort's defeat to finish out her seventh year. It had been an odd time; the school seemed hollow and just plain wrong without her friends at her side. But Hermione had never been one to leave anything unfinished, and she soldiered her way through as best she could. Still, at the end she had been more than ready to be quit of Hogwarts. It was a changed place, one that no longer felt like home.

_But what does anymore?_ she thought, and quelled the sigh that tried to escape her lips. Now was not the time to be dwelling on hers and Ron's problems. She had more pressing matters to attend to.

Despite the lights that shone out, warm yellow against the castle's gray stones, the place felt deserted. True, it was the Christmas holiday, and many students had probably returned to their homes. But there were always those who stayed on, the ones who had no real family to go home to. Sadly, more students were probably in that situation now than when she had attended Hogwarts, simply because of all those who had perished in the war with the Dark Lord.

But there was Professor McGonagall waiting for her just inside the entrance. The Headmistress looked much the same as she always had, although the knot of hair at the back of her head seemed a bit thinner and greyer.

She stepped forward at once. "Welcome back to Hogwarts, Miss Granger."

"I came as soon as I could." Hermione glanced past the Headmistress to the open double doors which led into the Great Hall. The hall should have been filled with light and students taking their evening meal, but the enormous room was dark and empty, devoid of life and activity.

"The students have all gone," McGonagall said. "Under the circumstances, I thought it best to send them away. A few of the staff have stayed on, but most of them have gone home for the holidays as well."

"Perhaps you should tell me what the problem is," Hermione said. There had been talk of closing the school when the basilisk had been freed from the Chamber of Secrets, but even then such drastic measures had eventually been avoided.

"Let us go up to my office," replied the Headmistress. "I am still awaiting the other half of the investigative team. It would probably be better to hold off the explanations until you are both here."

McGonagall's words were both unexpected and unwelcome. Other half of the investigative team? Kingsley Shacklebolt had said nothing to Hermione about working with someone else on this investigation. She preferred to go about her duties alone. It was so much simpler that way. Even in Magical Law Enforcement she'd had a difficult time finding anyone who could keep up with her thought processes.

Questions bubbled to her lips. From the set of Professor McGonagall's chin, it was clear that those questions would go unanswered. Instead, Hermione bent down and picked up her valise, then followed the Headmistress to her office.

Hermione had had her share of times wandering around Hogwarts after hours, but something about the empty corridors and deafening silence that surrounded them as they made their way to McGonagall's office made the hair lift on the back of her neck. Torches flickered in their sconces, lighting the way. The torchlight, however, didn't do much to relieve the inky shadows in the corners, or the gloom overhead in the lofty corridors.

_Just stop that_, she told herself. _It's perfectly clear that whatever is going on here, it's not anything directly threatening, or I doubt Professor McGonagall would be walking about quite so casually._

Good, no-nonsense words. Hermione just wished she believed them.

But they reached the entrance to the Headmistress's office quite without incident, and once they were inside Hermione felt a bit more normal. The place was refreshingly familiar. The only difference she could see was that Dumbledore's little silvery devices sat silent and still, all traces of magical life gone.

"Tea?" Professor McGonagall asked.

Hermione nodded. She thought she might as well do something to fill up the time until her mysterious "partner" appeared. Besides, the cold had begun to seep into her bones, and she realized she'd had nothing yet to eat today save a piece of toast. The cup of tea and plate of biscuits the Headmistress handed her were more than welcome.

Some evergreen branches and a red velvet bow decorated the mantel, but despite the attempt at holiday cheer, Hermione couldn't help thinking this would be a very dreary Christmas. The holiday was only a few days off. There was always the possibility that she could solve the mystery quickly and be back in London before Christmas Eve, but somehow she doubted it. Anything that had caused Professor McGonagall to summon her here had to be serious.

_Perhaps it's for the best_, she reflected, and sipped her tea. _No chance of a scene with Ron about the holiday if I'm hundreds of miles away._

But that thought somehow made her feel even more desolate, as if the realization that she'd rather spend Christmas alone than get in another row with Ron had suddenly brought home to her just how fractious their relationship had become. It shouldn't be like this, should it? To feel the absence from the person you supposedly loved as nothing more than a relief?

She was saved from following that depressing line of thought by a sharp knock at the entrance to the office.

"Excellent," said Professor McGonagall, who set aside her own teacup and saucer and went to open the door.

Hermione swiveled in her seat so she could get a clear glimpse of the newcomer. She still couldn't quite understand why the Headmistress hadn't just told her outright who her investigative partner was to be.

When he entered, however, Hermione thought for sure she must be seeing things. That shock of black hair, that swirl of dark robes -- no, he hadn't changed at all.

There was just the little matter of him supposedly being dead.

Professor McGonagall smiled down at Hermione. "I assume you and Professor Snape need no introduction."

Hermione could only stare up at him, a man she had believed to be dead all these years. The tea and biscuits seemed to roil within her stomach.

What the _hell_?

***

He'd wanted to ignore the summons. He had ordered his life -- what was left of it, anyway -- as best he could during the past five years. The wizarding world, save for a select few, thought him dead, and he wished to keep it that way.

But he also knew that this precious isolation was his only on sufferance, at best a loan that could be recalled at any time.

"I know you need time to heal," Kingsley Shacklebolt had told him. "But there may come a time when we have need of you."

What had lain unspoken between them was an admission the Minister of Magic seemed loath to make -- that with Voldemort and Albus Dumbledore gone, there was a distinct likelihood that he, Severus Snape, was now the most powerful wizard in Britain. A pleasant irony, or at least it would have been, if he'd desired anything except to be left alone.

Which, to do them credit, they had. He'd been given a small plot of land in a forgotten corner of Cornwall where he could tend his herbs and brew potions to his heart's content. Not that his heart had ever been particularly contented.

Still, it had been a refuge, something he had sorely lacked up until then. Just how many people knew he had survived Nagini's attack, he wasn't sure -- Kingsley, of course, Minerva McGonagall, the healer at St. Mungo's who had patched him up. Snape had never bothered to ask where the small stipend he received each month through Muggle post came from. For all he knew, it came out of Kingsley Shacklebolt's personal account.

When the owl had fluttered to his doorstep earlier that day, Snape knew it couldn't mean anything good. It meant the wizarding world was reaching back out to him, when he had done all he could to leave it behind. But he had retrieved the piece of parchment tied to the bird's leg anyhow. It was not in him to shirk responsibility, no matter how onerous it might seem.

The message, in Kingsley's heavy, slanted hand, was cryptic at best. _Minerva McGonagall requests that you come to Hogwarts at once. Prepare for a stay of several days_. No other explanations. No hint of what might possibly be so urgent. The note's brevity seemed more in line with the paranoia of the war with the Dark Lord, when communications were compromised and no one could be trusted. That Kingsley should apparently be exercising those same precautions now did not bode well.

So Snape had come to Hogwarts, bag packed with the necessities for a short stay. He tried not to think of what it would be like to see the place again, that looming structure of gray stone which had been home for the greater part of his life. And he tried not to think of what the implications of his appearing so publicly might mean for the quiet future he had envisioned. There was no time to alter his dress, but a quick Invisibility Charm should be enough to get him safely to the Headmistress's office. After that --

Well, after that it might not matter very much whether people discovered he was alive after all.

He Apparated a few yards outside the gates to the school's grounds. A fresh snow had fallen. The freezing air bit at his exposed face and hands; he would be glad enough to get inside, even if he had not desired this meeting. After pulling his traveling cloak a bit more tightly around himself and striding inside the gates, he murmured the words of the charm.

Nothing happened.

In consternation, he looked down at himself. An Invisibility Charm was not quite as foolproof as a magical cloak, of course -- one tended to still be there as a sort of watery, transparent blur if an observer looked hard enough. But in no way should he have looked as solid as he had before he cast the charm.

A scowl pulled at his brow, and he spoke the words again, this time as slowly and carefully as a first year practicing his first spell. Still nothing happened. How was this possible? To be sure, it had been some time since he'd cast an Invisibility Charm, but he was certain he couldn't have forgotten it. After all, he had cast much more obscure spells at his home back in Cornwall, and he'd never had difficulty with any of them.

Frown deepening, he strode to the castle's entrance. Perhaps with only a few days to go until Christmas, the school would be mostly deserted. And it was the dinner hour. With any luck, the students would all be safely at their evening meal, and no one would notice the return of their supposedly late, unlamented Headmaster.

Certainly no students were evident just inside the entrance, and the Great Hall was similarly empty. Oh, the castle was well lit and warm enough that Snape shrugged out of his traveling cloak and draped it over one arm, but the odd absence of any signs of life -- human, house-elf, or otherwise -- did nothing to erase the frown from his brow. He gave the slightest shrug and headed toward the Headmistress's office. No doubt Minerva would clear up the mystery soon enough.

The gargoyle that guarded the stairway was already shifted out of the way, as if Minerva had instructed it to move aside so that she wouldn't be forced to give Snape the password. Despite the fact that she had called for his help, it seemed she didn't quite trust him. Perhaps it was that thought which caused him to knock a little more sharply than he had intended.

A pause of a few seconds, and then Minerva McGonagall opened the door. She looked strained and tired, but a faint shadow of a smile touched her lips before she turned and addressed a strange young woman who sat in one of the armchairs by the hearth.

"I assume you and Professor Snape need no introduction," said Minerva, and from the look of shock on the stranger's face, apparently she recognized him.

He wished he could say the same. Something about her jogged his memory, but he couldn't quite think where he had seen her before. Her curly brown hair was only half-restrained by a clip, and she looked at him with wide dark eyes. It wasn't until she lifted her chin and tilted her head slightly that the half-familiar planes of her face shifted into focus. Hermione Granger. What on earth was that insufferable know-it-all doing here, of all places? He didn't know what was more shocking -- her presence, or the fact that he had thought her almost pretty until he realized who she was.

Minerva McGonagall spoke. "Miss Granger is now with the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. It was in her official capacity that she was sent here." She shifted her gaze from him down to Hermione, who straightened in her chair and quietly set the teacup she had been holding down on the table next to her. Minerva continued, "No doubt you are wondering at the secrecy surrounding your summons here, but Kingsley and I agreed that it was best. We had no reason to believe anyone would be intercepting our communications, but as this was a delicate matter, we decided to be as circumspect as possible."

Snape said nothing, but merely crossed his arms and waited. His long association with the Headmistress told him she would get to the point on her own time; any interruptions now would only serve to delay whatever revelations she was about to make.

Perhaps sensing the same thing, Hermione remained silent as well. Only the tapping of her fingers against the worn plush of the chair's arms revealed her impatience.

With the barest trace of a sigh, Minerva moved away from both of them and stopped a few feet in front of the hearth. Perhaps she had need of its warmth. Or perhaps she only wanted to put some distance between herself and the unlikely pair who waited silently as she collected her thoughts.

Finally she said, "We don't know what the problem is, exactly. That is why I called you in, Severus -- I know of no one else who has more knowledge of dark magic and dark wizards. And you, Hermione -- your superiors at the Ministry tell me that no one in your department has a higher success rate in solving their cases. I would have expected no less of you, of course." Again a faint ghost of a smile touched Minerva's lips.

Hermione broke her silence at last. Her voice seemed a little lower than Snape remembered. It was a woman's voice, not a girl's. "Of course I will do everything in my power to help." She hesitated, then added, "But what, precisely, is the problem? You said you sent the students home. Was something threatening them?"

"Threatening them?" At once Minerva shook her head. "No. Well, not precisely, at any rate."

"Then what?" Snape inquired. His patience, never abundant at the best of times, was beginning to wear thin. If he were going to be forced to solve this mystery -- whatever it was -- with the annoying Miss Granger at his side, he would prefer to get started immediately. The sooner he was done, the sooner he could go home.

Not that he had much to go home to. He was not the type to set much store in holidays and traditions, but for some reason the thought of another Christmas spent alone seemed even less appealing than usual.

Again a long pause, as Minerva buried her thin hands in the voluminous velvet folds of her dark green robes. Then she said, "It began slowly -- so slowly that at first no one noticed anything amiss. It was natural, after all, that certain students couldn't cast spells, especially those in the lower years or those whose talents were perhaps not as strong as those of their classmates. Even teachers have been known to make a bobble, as it were, from time to time."

_Some more than others_, Snape thought, his mouth twisting. Despite what had happened to Gilderoy Lockhart -- and even after all these years -- the thought that that preening popinjay had been selected as the Dark Arts teacher over him stilll rankled.

"But then it became more than the occasional bungled spell. No one, not even the professors, was able to cast a Charm, or brew an effective potion. Brooms wouldn't fly. The stairways stopped moving. The paintings became merely paintings."

For the first time Snape realized that the usual muttering convo of past headmasters in their gilt frames was conspicuously absent. Some of the frames were empty, but those which were not featured flat, unmoving portraits, lifeless as a painting in a Muggle museum. He crossed his arms and waited.

Minerva appeared to gather herself. "For whatever reason, it appears that magic has abandoned Hogwarts."


	2. Chapter 2

Thank you for the reviews, everyone! As I said, this will be updated about every three or four days, so it should move fairly quickly.

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II

For a moment, Hermione wasn't quite sure she had heard the Headmistress correctly. How could magic abandon Hogwarts? Wasn't magic at the very core of its existence, as much a part of the castle's structure as the stones and mortar that composed its walls?

But then she looked more closely about her, noticed again how Albus Dumbledore's little silvery devices sat quiet and still, no longer making their customary whirring noises or emitting their faint puffs of pale smoke. And she saw how the portraits on the walls had lost all their life and were as unmoving as any painting she had seen in the National Gallery. A few of the frames hung empty; she wondered if their occupants had been marooned elsewhere when the magic disappeared from Hogwarts.

Professor Snape stood as unmoving as one of the lifeless paintings, brow furrowed, mouth compressed to a thin line. Since that was his habitual expression, Hermione couldn't hazard a guess as to what he might be thinking.

She wouldn't let herself think what his presence here meant. How could he have possibly survived Nagini's attack? She had seen him die -- at least, she thought she had. But the night of the battle for Hogwarts had been such a muddle of terror and worry and despair, perhaps it was possible she had misread what happened in the Shrieking Shack. Perhaps when Severus Snape had closed his eyes for what she had thought was his last time, what he had really been doing was husbanding his strength to keep himself alive until after they had gone.

A flutter of guilt in her midsection then, as she recalled how they had left the lifeless form of the Potions master behind. Not a second glance from any of them; Snape was dead, and they had had a battle to wage. At the time she hadn't thought anything more of it, save perhaps a quick fleeting notion that she hoped she would never die as Severus Snape had: alone, unloved, unmourned.

Her voice sounded thick and hoarse when she spoke, quite unlike herself. Perhaps it was the chill of her walk across Hogwarts' grounds. After all, it was much colder here than in London. Yes, that must be it.

"And you've found nothing to explain this sudden loss of magic?"

Minerva shook her head. "The staff has scoured the castle from top to bottom. No sign of anything amiss, as far as any of us could tell. No whiff of dark magic."

Professor Snape spoke, his voice coolly sardonic. "And of course you trusted Professor Williamson to make an accurate assessment."

His tone left no doubt as to his own thoughts on Professor Williamson's abilities. Hermione had always thought Williamson a good choice for the open Dark Arts position; after all, the man had served in the Auror Department for some years. Perhaps Snape simply couldn't be charitable toward anyone who occupied the post he had coveted for so many years and had held for such a short amount of time.

"Yes, I did," McGonagall replied. Her mouth compressed slightly. "We are clearly dealing with something quite out of the ordinary here, Severus. Otherwise, I would not have troubled you with it."

"Of course," said Professor Snape. He moved farther into the room, brushing past Hermione in her chair as if she weren't there. Then he paused below the portrait of Phineas Nigellus -- or rather, the empty rectangle of canvas that had once held his portrait. "Have you attempted to contact Professor Nigellus?"

For a second Minerva McGonagall stared at Snape as if she thought he had gone mad. After a brief hesitation, her expression relaxed slightly. "No -- that is, no one seems to know where his other portrait had gone."

At this remark Hermione gave a guilty start and straightened in her chair. "Actually, I have it."

"You?" Professor Snape demanded. He stared down at her, black brows drawn together in a scowl she remembered only too well.

Feeling a bit overmatched, she stood up and faced his glare. Of course he still topped her by almost a foot, but she felt a little better now that she could meet his gaze from a standing position. "Yes, I. The three of us took the portrait from the Black house, but after the end of the War, Harry said he really didn't care to take it back there, so I kept it."

And little enough Phineas Nigellus had thought of that treatment, since at first she'd had no good place to store the painting save where she had during that entire terrible year -- in the little beaded bag which would hold just about anything she placed in it. Once she had her own flat she'd tried to give Phineas a proper home on the wall of the second bedroom she used as an office, but he heaped so much abuse on her for the shoddy treatment he'd suffered that she ended up stowing the portrait in her attic. She didn't know if that was much of an improvement over the beaded bag. Harry, however, had been adamant about not taking the painting back, and she hadn't known what else to do with it.

"Then we must go to your flat and question him."

Professor Snape's tone allowed little room for dispute -- not that she would have bothered to argue the point with him. His suggestion made a great deal of sense. If Phineas Nigellus had somehow managed to escape before Hogwarts became completely magic-free, he might know something of what had caused the phenomenon.

Still, she felt more than a little odd taking Severus Snape to her flat -- even if their destination was only the attic. At least they could Apparate directly there once they were off school grounds.

"That seems the logical thing to do," she replied. Was it her imagination, or did a flicker of surprise cross his features, as if he had expected her to put forth much more of an argument?

A second later she wished she had, for she belatedly realized that since of course Professor Snape had never been to her attic, their travel would necessitate Side-Along Apparition. And that spell required the person hitching the ride, so to speak, to hold the caster's arm quite firmly.

Oh, dear.

Hermione hoped none of the dismay she felt had revealed itself on her face. "It's best if we go as soon as possible," she went on, since there was no way to backtrack without making herself look a fool. Besides, interviewing Professor Nigellus did seem the best thing to do, given that they really had no other leads.

"Would you like to put your things in the rooms we've had prepared?" Professor McGonagall asked. "Get yourselves settled, and then go on with the investigation?"

That did sound like a wise thing to do. No doubt the Headmistress would rather not be tripping over their travel things in their absence.

Snape gave a small, nudging nod, and Hermione replied, "Of course. That way we shan't disturb you if we're late in returning."

"Excellent." Professor McGonagall turned toward the door, obviously expecting them to follow her.

Hermione bent and picked up her valise. Professor Snape, she noted, carried a slender slim black case almost hidden by the folds of the traveling cloak he had draped over one arm. They both trailed after the Headmistress as she led them out of the office, down the steps, and then along a corridor Hermione had never seen before. Then again, she'd never had much need to explore this part of the castle. The hallway was wide and well lit by a series of sconces with fat yellow candles sitting on them. The air smelled of beeswax.

They stopped at the end of the corridor, which terminated in a rounded antechamber with a pair of doors flanking a side table carved from age-darkened oak. On it sat a bust of some ancient wizard; perhaps before the magic had left the castle he had been as animated as the portraits in Professor McGonagall's office, but now the wizard was still and quiet, his eyes shut as if he were indulging in a long-needed nap.

"Yours," said Minerva, who produced a heavy ring of keys from some pocket in her robes. She unlocked the door to the left and gestured toward Hermione, who gripped her valise a little more tightly and stepped inside.

The room was quite sumptuous, furnished in more heavy carved oak and hangings of burgundy and gold. No doubt it had been intended for important visitors who had once belonged to Gryffindor House. She set her valise down on the chest at the foot of the bed, all too aware of Professor Snape's cold gaze on her as she did so.

"And yours," the Headmistress went on, going to the door on the right.

Hermione turned to see an equally elegant room, this one draped in dark green and silver grey. Without a word, Professor Snape moved past Professor McGonagall and placed his own meager luggage on the floor next to what looked like an extremely comfortable armchair. Still silent, he returned to the antechamber, then crossed his arms.

"It would be best if we went now," he said.

No doubt he wished to get what he most likely viewed as an unpleasant task over and done with as quickly as possible. Hermione tried to keep her tone neutral as she replied, "My thoughts exactly." She turned to the Headmistress. "Does the area affected by the loss of magic follow the boundaries of the school grounds? I Apparated about ten yards from the front gates and had no difficulty."

McGonagall nodded. "As far as we've been able to tell. Whatever is affecting Hogwarts, its influence does not extend beyond what's commonly accepted to be the property's borders."

Well, she'd thought as much, considering she'd been able to travel to the school by magical means just as she always had, but Hermione was glad to hear they wouldn't have to go miles away just to cast a simple spell. She picked up her cloak and said, "Then we'd best be on our way."

In response Snape draped his own cloak over his shoulders, then turned and strode down the corridor in the direction they'd come. Hermione wouldn't let herself trot to keep up -- that would be too undignified -- but she lengthened her own strides as best she could and managed to stay only a pace or two behind him. Poor Professor McGonagall had been quite outmatched, but then, she wouldn't be accompanying them anyway.

The night air felt even more freezing as Hermione emerged from the relative warmth of Hogwarts' corridors, and she pulled her cloak more tightly around her. Even Snape reached up to fasten the row of buttons that held his own outer garment shut. That didn't slow him down, however; he maintained the same ground-eating pace until they were well beyond the school's front gates.

Finally he stopped and faced her. The moonlight cast harsh shadows on a visage that had never been soft. "Ready?"

"Of course," she lied. Not about the spell, since Apparition had always come easily to her. But the rest --

Hoping that he hadn't seen her hesitation, Hermione reached out and hooked her right arm around his left. His arm felt slender but strong, stronger than she might have imagined.

_Sooner done, sooner over_, she thought. She fixed the image of the attic in her mind and whispered the words of the spell, even as she spun into the nothingness of Disapparition, Severus Snape's arm clutched tightly within both of hers.

The dusty confines of her attic room materialized around them almost instantaneously. Hermione barely had time to acknowledge the crushing pressure on her chest before it was gone.

Professor Snape had a look of grudging respect on his face. She could Apparate and Disapparate elegantly and in almost complete silence, unlike Ron, who invariably sounded like a cork exploding from a champagne bottle whenever he came and went in such a fashion.

Still, Hermione knew better than to expect any words of praise. She was not disappointed.

"The painting?" Snape asked.

Without replying, she went to a linen-shrouded shape propped up against the far wall. "_Lumos!_" she said, then twitched the drop cloth aside with a mental sigh and waited for the inevitable explosion.

"This is absolutely intolerable!" spluttered Nigellus. "Do you have any idea how disrespectful -- "

"Professor, we need your help."

"Help!" The snort that followed this imprecation was explosive and also rather incongruous, coming as it was from a flat image trapped within the confines of a flaking gilt frame. "I'll help you to a cell in Azkaban! When the Regents hear how I've been treated -- "

"Phineas," drawled Snape, and stepped forward into the bluish-white glow of Hermione's illumination spell.

The appearance of the Potions master was apparently enough to shock Nigellus into silence…if only for a moment. He stared at Snape, then said, "Severus? What are you doing with this uppity little mudblood?"

The epithet did not unduly upset Hermione. She hadn't been raised in the wizarding world, and its silly prejudices would only harm her if she let them. But she could tell Nigellus' words had angered Professor Snape. His mouth thinned, and she noted the hard set of his jaw as he stared down at the portrait of the former Headmaster.

"Miss Granger and I," he said, taking care to emphasize her name, "are here on Ministry business. If you behave yourself, perhaps I will see to it that you are given a proper home."

"Is that any way to speak to your betters? Why, I -- "

"The drop cloth, Miss Granger?"

Fighting back a grin, Hermione bent down to retrieve the heavy length of linen. Even as she did so, she heard Nigellus screech,

"No, not that! What sort of help did you need?"

Snape crossed his arms and stared down at the pointed face of the man in the portrait. Hermione had always been of the opinion that Phineas Nigellus had cultivated his narrow, vaguely Elizabethan beard to hide a weak chin.

"Have you tried to return to Hogwarts recently?"

The portrait couldn't exactly turn pale, but some alteration in his face made Nigellus look even more pinched and hollow. "No."

Hermione stepped forward. "Why not?"

"Because I can't."

She risked a quick glance at Snape. The former Potions master stared down at the portrait with an expression of mild interest on his saturnine features, as if Nigellus were some new form of fungus he couldn't quite identify.

"Can't…or won't?" she asked.

"Can. Not," Nigellus snapped. "Have you had your hearing checked recently? Or do you not have command of the most basic aspects on the English language?"

Her only reply was to feint toward the abandoned the drop cloth.

"I can't, I can't!" squawked Nigellus. "I've tried. It's like traveling down a tunnel, only to find it bricked up at the end."

Severus Snape's expression did not change. "What did it used to be like?"

"Darkness, but with a rectangle of light at the end -- the other portrait frame, if you will." Phineas Nigellus seemed to gather himself a bit. "I always saw my destination. But this last week or so…nothing. I tried, of course. Anything was better than being trapped here in the dark." He shot a narrow-eyed glare in Hermione's direction.

She wished she could feel guilty, but really, she had had no choice. Even exiled to the attic Nigellus had made his disgust at his treatment known, usually during the darkest hours of the night. In desperation she had thrown the drop cloth over his portrait, reasoning that such a strategy had always worked for her parents when they wanted to control the more vociferous of the budgies they'd owned. She'd hated herself for doing so, but the neighbors in the flats to either side of her had begun to complain, and what else could she do? The girls in the flat below hers were also witches who worked in the Ministry of Magic, but the people to either side were Muggles who most likely would not have accepted an explanation that involved a painted former Headmaster with a nasty disposition.

Why Phineas bothered to come back here at all, she didn't know. She could only guess that he enjoyed plaguing her existence. It was highly unlikely that Minerva McGonagall would countenance that sort of behavior.

"And then what?" she asked.

"Then nothing," he replied, giving her a truly evil glare. "As I said, like hitting a brick wall and being thrown backward. I kept ending up here, no matter what I did." His eyes narrowed even further, although Hermione wouldn't have thought that was possible. "Someone put a spell on my portrait at Hogwarts, didn't they? I'd blame one of those dreadful Weasleys, but of course they're all long gone by now."

"No one's put a spell on it," Professor Snape interjected. "Quite the opposite."

"I'm afraid I don't follow."

"I mean, Professor, that magic seems to have vanished from Hogwarts. The 'brick wall' you mentioned is no doubt the absence of magic surrounding your other portrait frame. Of course you cannot travel there, because the magic doesn't exist to allow you to materialize at that end. All of the paintings hanging in Headmistress McGonagall's office are simply that -- paintings, with no more life than a landscape you'd see hanging on the wall of a Muggle home."

Hermione had never thought she'd feel sympathy for Phineas Nigellus, but the look of horror he turned on Snape was genuine, and rather heart-wrenching. "It's not possible," he whispered. "I'm trapped here?"

"For now," Professor Snape said. There was certainly no sympathy in his tone. "The Ministry has tasked us with solving the mystery. Obviously, the current situation cannot continue indefinitely."

"No," Nigellus said, although Hermione got the impression he was still thinking of himself rather than the larger issue of a school for wizards that -- for the moment, anyway -- was bereft of magic. Ignoring her, he fastened Snape with a pleading stare. "You will fix it, won't you?"

"If we can," was Snape's only reply. "But if there's nothing further you can tell us…" He turned to Hermione. "I think it best we return to Hogwarts and focus our energies there."

"Wait!" called Nigellus. "I remember something else -- a feeling of cold, of dread, like a Dementor -- "

Snape crossed his arms and raised one eyebrow ever so slightly. It was a technique often used to good effect on his students, and apparently Phineas Nigellus wasn't immune, either.

"No," he said, misery clear in his voice. "I really didn't feel anything. Just the realization that I couldn't go any further, and that I had to return here."

"Thank you, Professor Nigellus," Snape said, although he sounded less than grateful. "Miss Granger."

Under other circumstances she might have been irritated by the manner in which he had taken over the conversation. But it was clear that Phineas Nigellus was just as dead an end as his erstwhile route back to Hogwarts, and they had nothing further to do here.

At least this time she didn't have to take Severus Snape's arm. They whirled away into the darkness, and Apparated in the same spot from which they had left. Nothing had changed, save a slight shift in the moon's position, and an even deeper bite to the chill wind that swept down off the Scottish crags.

She refrained from speaking until they were safely inside and the doors shut against the frosty night. After undoing the cloak clasp at her throat, she remarked, "Well, that was a waste of time."

"Not at all," Professor Snape replied. "Whatever is causing this cessation of magic, it seems to have quite thoroughly blanketed the place. It is nothing as simple as blocking basic spells, or even casting a curse that would prevent any mortal man or woman from using magic in Hogwarts. Phineas Nigellus is not mortal, of course -- he is a specter, an echo of his former self. And yet even he cannot return here. There is no magic in this place to support his shadow being."

For a moment Hermione was silent as she turned over Snape's words in her mind. A curse that could block magic was something she had never heard of, although theoretically she supposed it might be possible. But all the evidence seemed to suggest something much larger than that was at work here.

"So what's next?" she asked.

Something that might have been the barest flicker of a grim smile touched his lips. "I suggest we sleep on it, Miss Granger. It is late, and I suspect Hogwarts will be unchanged when we awake tomorrow."

That didn't sound quite right to her. Surely they should be doing more than merely going to bed and calling it a night. She opened her mouth to protest, but it was too late; he had already turned away from her and was moving swiftly down the corridor in the direction of his chamber.

Hermione shut her mouth with a snap she could feel in her jaw. Most likely the day's frustrations would set her to grinding her teeth in her sleep once more. And of course in her haste to come here she'd forgotten to pack the little mouth guard her father had made for her.

Whatever else might happen, she couldn't stand here in the entryway all night. Perhaps a good night's sleep was in order. Perhaps she would wake tomorrow with a fresh perspective on the situation. No doubt Professor Snape was right, and Hogwarts would be exactly the same when she awoke the next morning.

She didn't quite know what she would do if it wasn't.


	3. Chapter 3

Thank you to everyone for the reviews, and for the story alerts and favorites. This one is really just for fun.

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III

Hermione awoke to a clattering noise. Her eyes fluttered open and immediately focused on the thin, woebegone shape of a house-elf who was in the process of setting fresh logs in the grate.

"Good morning," she said.

The house-elf started and dropped the remaining log he held. At least, Hermione assumed it was a he, judging by the stained tea towel wrapped around his lower half. His eyes were large and luminous, golden as an owl's. "A thousand pardons for waking you, Mistress Granger."

She waved a hand as if to brush those unneeded apologies aside, then pushed back the covers so she could swing her legs over the side of the bed and stand up. It was cold in the chamber; at once she reached for the warm fleece nightrobe her parents had given her the previous Christmas.

Once upon a time she might have tried to keep the house-elf from performing domestic duties on her behalf, but over the last few years it had begun to sink in that house-elves were actually offended by a human's insistence on doing things for herself. She would never stop hating the house-elves' acceptance of their endless servitude. She had just finally realized that arguing with them about it seemed to upset them far more than the work they were asked to do.

So Hermione watched as the unknown house-elf leaned over the grate, clicked his fingers together to make the necessary spark, then commenced poking at the logs and tinder until the flame caught. It was a series of actions she'd seen a thousand times, one so ordinary that her brain required a few seconds to catch up with what she had just witnessed.

"Was that magic?" she inquired. At least her voice sounded steady, although she had to bury her shaking hands in the pockets of her robe.

The house-elf tilted his head to one side. "Pardon?"

"The spark you used to start the fire. Was that magic -- house-elf magic?"

"Yes, Mistress Granger. We have these little magics to help us in our work." His tiny forehead creased, and he added hastily, "If Miss Granger disapproves -- if you would like me to start the fire without -- " And he began to lean toward the grate, as if ready to put out the fire with his bare hands if she found fault with its method of construction.

"No, no," Hermione said at once. "It's a lovely fire. It's just that…"

She hesitated. Did the house-elves even have an inkling of the current state of wizarding magic at Hogwarts, or were they blissfully unaware, their own powers -- for whatever reason -- untouched? Somehow she found that scenario less difficult to believe than she would have liked. The house-elves did everything they could to keep themselves hidden away. There was a strict divide between their lives and those of Hogwarts' human denizens. It was entirely possible that the elves had gone on quietly with their chores and had never noticed anything was amiss. And it was equally possible that the Hogwarts staff, Minerva McGonagall included, had never considered the seamless service they received simply because it was so seamless.

Only Hermione noticed, just because she had an eccentric (to the rest of the wizarding world, anyway) interest in house-elves. She wondered how long it would have taken for someone to pick up on the fact that the diminutive household staff had no problem using the magical gifts with which they'd been born.

Professor Snape must know of this at once.

"Excuse me," she said to the house-elf, who blinked up at her with wide, startled eyes. No doubt he was unused to receiving the common courtesies humans exchanged amongst themselves.

She hurried out of the room and marched across the small antechamber that separated her chambers from Professor Snape's, then knocked on the door. Her bedroom had no clock, and her Muggle watch was still tucked into the toiletry case in her valise, so she had no idea of the time. Not that it mattered. Her news was important enough that it merited a rude awakening.

The door swung inward, and Snape stared down at her. Apparently he had been up for some time, as he was dressed in his black frock coat and matching trousers, although the long robes were nowhere in evidence.

Sardonic dark eyes took in her Muggle nightrobe and bare feet. "And to what do I owe the honor of this visit?"

No, she would not blush. Perhaps it hadn't been entirely wise to rush over here after just rolling out of bed, but at least she was completely covered up. The stone pavers might as well have been a sheet of ice against her bare feet, however.

She noted that a faded runner of Persian weave covered the floor under the Potions master's black boots. "Might I come in?"

Without speaking, he stepped aside to allow her entry. The rug felt marvelous against her toes as she moved down the short hallway and into the sitting area. Flames crackled in the hearth, and a leather-backed volume lay face down on the arm of the plump chair which faced the fireplace. Hermione wished she could see the title of the book Snape had been reading, but it was far enough away that she couldn't inspect it without being completely obvious.

He followed her into the sitting room and paused to one side of the fireplace, still silent. Obviously he expected her to explain why she would choose to show up on his doorstep early in the morning while still wearing her nightclothes.

"It's not all magic that doesn't work," she said without preamble. "It's just human magic that doesn't."

Was that a flicker of interest in those cold black eyes? Difficult to say. Certainly his blank expression showed no alteration. "And what makes you think that?"

"I saw a house-elf start a fire just now with only a spark off his fingertip," Hermione replied. Then she felt a flash of irritation -- at herself, for not asking the house-elf his name. His eyes were quite distinctive, and she supposed she would recognize him if she saw him again, but still it had been clumsy of her. "I asked him about it, and he said it was his magic -- house-elf magic."

"Show me," Snape said.

Hermione felt a twinge of irritation at his peremptory tone but decided the matter at hand was urgent enough to ignore his rudeness. It wasn't as if she hadn't had plenty of practice dealing with his brusque behavior during her years as a student.

Maintaining a pointed silence, she returned to her rooms, Snape a quiet shadow at her heels. Too late she realized she'd left the bed a jumble of unmade covers.

But the Potions master didn't spare a glance for the four-poster monstrosity, or its messy sheets and blankets. He stared at the fire, which blazed away happily. The house-elf who lit it was nowhere in evidence.

Mentally Hermione cursed her stupidity. Perhaps she'd become too dependent on a morning cup of coffee to get her brain going these past few years. "I should have told him to stay."

Professor Snape drawled, "Yes, that would have been useful."

"It's no matter," she snapped. "I know the way to the kitchens -- we can find him there and speak to him. Also, we can interview the other house-elves if necessary. It will be more efficient that way."

"Of course."

She refused to let the ironic inflection in those two words bother her. She also realized that if she were about to commence tromping all over the castle with Severus Snape in tow, it might be better to change into something more suitable than a fleece robe and a flannel nightgown.

"If I might have some time to get dressed -- "

"That would be wise." His gaze flickered to the window, where the sun had just begun to peek out from behind a thick bank of clouds. "Half an hour?"

"Twenty minutes." That would mean forgoing a bath, but she couldn't see Snape waiting around for her to wash her hair. She'd just have her bath tonight before bed. It wasn't the end of the world.

Besides, she had a feeling she was going to need the relaxation of a bath after a day spent in the Potions master's company.

***

Of all the ways Severus Snape might have imagined his day beginning, none had included Hermione Granger showing up on his doorstep clad only in her nightclothes. To be sure, she'd been as covered up as any student muffled in school robes, but her appearance had been somewhat disconcerting.

Equally disconcerting was her revelation that house-elf magic apparently still worked. In most cases he would have said he'd have to see such a thing for himself before he'd believe it, but for all her faults, the irrepressible Miss Granger wasn't known for misrepresenting the truth. If she'd seen a house-elf use magic, then she had. Or at least she thought she had.

That put a different twist on things. A blanket negation of magic, unprecedented as it might be, made more sense than one which appeared to selectively suppress one species' magical abilities yet left another intact. Like it or not, the puzzle seemed only to be gaining more and more pieces.

He went back to his room to wait while Hermione changed out of her nightclothes. To pass the time, he picked up the book he had been reading -- a new translation of Cadogan's _Flora of the Hebrides_. For some reason, he had a difficult time concentrating. In his mind's eye he kept seeing Hermione, her hair a wild tangle around her shoulders, her cheeks flushed with excitement and her eyes shining. She hadn't stopped to think whether it was proper to charge into her former teacher's room in her nightgown and robe, feet bare. No, her only concern was to let him know of her discovery as soon as possible.

Such passion and determination should be admired…except when the mental visual it provided proved to be so distracting. He had no clear explanation for why, save that it had been a very long time since he'd spent much time around anyone, let alone a lovely young woman. That in itself should be enough to take his mind off more important matters.

He stopped himself there. Lovely? Hermione Granger? It was not an adjective he would have ever thought to use to describe her. She had been an awkward girl, after all…teeth too prominent, hair a bushy mess, robes and uniform always slightly askew. Even if he were the type of man to lust after underage girls -- which he most decidedly was not -- she hadn't been someone to attract any particular attention. Well, not that sort of attention, at any rate.

But she had grown into herself these past seven years. The mane of hair had been tamed somewhat, the teeth had assumed normal proportions somewhere down the line, and she carried herself with a grace quite alien to the sloppy schoolgirl she had once been. If he had passed her on the street, he quite probably would have never recognized her.

Well and good. So she had changed. Her appearance shouldn't distract him from the matter at hand, the reason why he was here at all. Minerva McGonagall and the Ministry expected him to solve this mystery. He couldn't very well do that while dwelling on Hermione Granger's dubious charms.

A knock came at the door, and he laid his neglected book aside. Hermione waited outside, dressed in sensible gray wool robes, her hair pulled back into a clasp. A few wayward curls drifted around her face, but overall she looked very neat and plain, quite unlike the wild-eyed woman who had barged into his room a short time earlier. And she had done it in less than the twenty minutes she had promised earlier.

He wouldn't permit himself to praise her efficiency. "The kitchens?"

Something danced in her brown eyes and was gone before he could tell what it was. "Of course, Professor."

Then she turned and strode purposefully down the corridor, back toward the main entrance hall. She took the door to the right and led Snape down another hallway, this one lined with pictures of food, all of which served to remind him that he hadn't yet broken his fast. They descended a wide stone staircase and stopped at a large still life of carefully rendered fruit.

"Never been down here, have you?" she inquired.

Mystified, he responded, "Why would I?"

She appeared to have no answer to that. Instead, she leaned toward the painting and tickled the rounded yellow-green pear that occupied a prominent position in the fruit bowl. The pear giggled, then assumed the shape of a door handle.

"More magic," she said, then pushed the door inward.

Snape wouldn't allow an expression of astonishment to reveal itself on his face, but he had to admit that he was a bit startled. It was one thing to hear Hermione tell him that certain forms of magic apparently still worked and quite another to see it for himself.

The room they entered had high ceilings and an enormous fireplace at the far end. An equally enormous fire blazed there, welcome warmth after the castle's chilly corridors. A small army of house-elves stood at various stations around the chamber: at the stove, chopping meat and vegetables at the huge tables in the center of the room. It seemed overkill, considering how few people currently remained at Hogwarts, but perhaps the house-elves had a difficult time breaking their normal routine.

Smells of warm cinnamon and frying bacon met his nose. His stomach rumbled.

Hermione shot an amused glance in his direction. "I'm sure the house-elves would be more than happy to give us some breakfast after we talk to them."

There being no way to reply to her comment without admitting that most unbecoming stomach growl, he said only, "Do you see the house-elf who laid the fire in your room?"

Her lips quirked, but she was mercifully silent as she scanned the room. To Snape's eyes, the kitchen servants all looked the same. He hoped she had some way of distinguishing the house-elf who had tended her fire.

"Over there, by the hearth," she said after a moment.

Without looking back to see whether he followed, she strode across the room toward the elf in question. Snape tried to ignore the curious (or was that horrified?) looks of the other house-elves as he made his own way toward the fireplace. No doubt they were unused to human intrusion into their domestic realm. He would much rather have preferred to conduct this interview elsewhere, but of course the indefatigable Miss Granger didn't seem to care overmuch about her surroundings.

As he approached, he saw the house-elf cowering away from Hermione, although there was nothing in her stance to suggest any sort of threat. Then again, perhaps the blaze of intellectual curiosity in her eyes was enough.

"No, it was a wonderful fire," he heard her say. She paused, as if to acknowledge his presence, then returned her attention to the house-elf. "It's just the magic you used -- "

"We always use magic," the elf squeaked. Its golden eyes seemed almost to glow in the reflected light from the hearth. Snape had the distinct impression that it briefly contemplated hurling itself into the fire to escape Hermione's questioning.

"I know," she said, with a patience he hadn't expected. "But have any of you stopped to think why the school is so empty right now?"

A pause then, as the house-elf furrowed its sallow brow. "It's the holidays."

"Yes, of course. But usually there are still more people here than this."

Another silence. Then, "We did only cook up ten rashers of bacon this morning."

"Exactly."

The house-elf gave her a puzzled look while Snape tried not to think about those ten rashers of bacon.

"There's no magic," she said. "That is, there's no magic for _us_. You've gone about your business -- and splendidly, I might add -- but it's difficult to have a school for magic when none of the students can actually use it."

The brow-furrowing which followed this statement seemed likely to dig permanent grooves in the house-elf's forehead. "How can there be no magic?"

"That's what Professor Snape and I are trying to find out."

It seemed as good an entry to the conversation as any. "Have you seen anything unusual?" Snape asked. "Or heard anything?"

A head shake that stopped mid-jiggle. "Not seen, exactly. But some of the other house-elves were saying they didn't want to go back to the seventh cellar."

"The seventh cellar?" Hermione put in. "What's that?"

"Root storage, mistress. Potatoes and rutabagas and such. There's a series of cellars beneath the kitchen. I haven't been, because my job is the fires, and the wood is in the first cellar, but Dash and Blink said they heard something…moving. Wouldn't go back in. A few others went and didn't hear anything, but no one's been for a bit." His eyes opened even wider, if possible. "Has someone been complaining about no potatoes?"

"Not that I'm aware of," Snape replied, halfway amused despite himself. If he stopped to think about it, there had been a definite lack of root-based dishes for the past week or so, but since the food at Hogwarts had always been so varied and uniformly delicious, he hadn't noticed. And if he hadn't, he doubted that the few staff members left at Hogwarts would have noted their absence.

"Well, that settles it," Hermione said. That determined glint was back in her eyes.

As soon as Snape had heard the house-elf mention the cellars, he'd had a notion where this might end up. That didn't make her next words any more welcome, however.

"We must go down to the seventh cellar at once."


	4. Chapter 4

Hi, everyone! Sorry I was a bit slower about updating this time -- the last week has been really hectic. Thank you again to everyone for their reviews!

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IV

Hermione watched as Professor Snape's brows drew down in their customary scowl. His next words, however, were somewhat unexpected.

"Not before breakfast," he said.

She blinked. "I beg your pardon?"

His expression didn't change. "I mean, Miss Granger, that if I am going to be required to traipse around in a root cellar that may or may not be populated by something unknown and inimical, I would prefer to do it on a full stomach."

Well, she couldn't argue with that. Or rather, she supposed she could if she really wanted to, but at that moment the thought of that bacon caused her stomach to wake up and demand it be fed, and soon. After all, Hogwarts had been suffering under this unusual curse or spell or whatever it was for some time now. A delay of a half-hour or so really shouldn't make much of a difference.

She opened her mouth to say as much, but the efficiency of the house-elves forestalled her. It appeared that as soon as Snape had uttered the fateful word "breakfast," they had hastened to bring the morning meal over to the table nearest them. Scents of warm bread and hot buttered eggs wafted toward her, and her stomach uttered an unbecoming growl of its own.

The Potions master said nothing, but Hermione was fairly certain the little glint she glimpsed in his black eyes had very little to do with the reflected light from the fire.

Any comment she might utter would only make matters worse, so in grim silence she made her way over to the table, pulled out the bench a bit so she could sit down, and took her seat. It was rather uncomfortable; it appeared to have been crafted for the house-elves' use, and so of course was far too low to the ground for someone of normal human height.

She had to stifle a laugh as she watched Snape somehow fold himself between the bench and the table. He sat at the very end of the bench in order to give his long legs somewhere to go, but the position still looked awkward in the extreme. His posture, coupled with the expression of grim determination on his face, suddenly reminded her of a long-ago tea time where a friend had invited her father to join Hermione and various stuffed animals in sharing some refreshment. The house-elves' table and benches weren't much larger than that childhood set of furniture.

"Tea?" she inquired, and reached for a small pot of cream stoneware next to her place setting.

"Yes," he said shortly, then pushed a cup a few inches toward her.

She could feel a smile threaten to spread across her mouth, so Hermione went on, "Whatever it is, it seems to have the house-elves quite frightened."

This apparent non sequitur didn't appear to faze Professor Snape. "That may be. However, I'm not certain there's anything at all down there. Concocting a story about an unknown presence in the lowest cellar sounds to me more like a ploy to get out of having to fetch anything from what is obviously an inconvenient location."

"That's ridiculous!" she snapped, annoyed that he would accuse the house-elves of something so duplicitous. "House-elves are unbelievably hard workers. I've never known them to do anything to avoid their duties, even though their situation basically amounts to slavery!"

This spirited defense appeared to have very little effect on Snape. He merely lifted his cup of tea and sipped at it, an infuriating smirk playing at the corner of his mouth. "How lucky they are to have you as their defender."

"Not lucky enough, considering they still work day and night for no wages, and don't even get decent clothes to wear." With a conscious effort, Hermione paused and forced herself to choke back any further words on the subject. She'd spent the past five years butting her head up against that particular wall, with very little to show for her efforts save some extended teasing from Ron and Harry that had far outlived any humor it might once have possessed. The subject was an especially touchy one when it came to her relationship with Ron. He'd complained on many occasions that if she spent as much time with him as she did crusading for house-elves' rights, they would have been married by now.

There'd been no point in correcting him. She knew she could never tell him the thought of marriage right now was terrifying. How could she possibly decide what she wanted to do with the rest of her life when she was only twenty-three? It didn't help that Harry and Ginny were already so settled, with little Albus toddling around the house and baby number two on the way. Ron thought his own life should be progressing at the same rate. Hermione's intransigence on the subject had become a constant irritant in their relationship, like a pebble firmly lodged in one's shoe.

She realized Professor Snape was watching her closely, eyes intent above the rim of his teacup. Such scrutiny caused a sudden flush to rise in her cheeks, an unwelcome heat that couldn't be blamed entirely on her proximity to the hearth.

"Anyway," she said, pushing on doggedly in an attempt to cover up her woolgathering, "only someone who knows next to nothing about house-elves would make that sort of accusation. If they are avoiding the seventh cellar, then I assure you they must have a very good reason for doing so."

He reached across the table to lift the tongs from the tray of bacon and deposited a few slices on his plate. "I will concede to the expert."

There was no mistaking the sarcastic flick he gave to that last word, and Hermione dug her nails into her palms and reminded herself to count to ten. At any rate, she'd had six years as a student to get used to the way Severus Snape used words as weapons. Why should she have thought the past five years of isolation would have changed him in the slightest?

_Obviously even near-death had no significant impact_, she thought sourly, then helped herself to some buttered scrambled eggs and a scone.

In silence he placed an equal number of bacon slices on her own plate, and she thought she might revise that uncharitable thought just a bit. After all, a man who would willingly hand over bacon without her even having to ask must have some redeeming qualities.

Hermione didn't quite want to ask herself why she should even care whether Professor Snape had any redeeming qualities. Instead, she picked up a slice of bacon and allowed herself a few bites before saying, "The house-elf didn't give any particulars, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if the strange sounds in the seventh cellar began around the same time magic started to fail."

"Correlation is not causation," he remarked, just before he bit into a piece of buttered toast.

"I know that," she replied at once, feeling a bit stung. Was he presuming to quote the basics of research methodology back at her? "It still doesn't mean there can't be a connection."

The smirk made a repeat appearance. "Ah, Miss Granger. This exchange only serves as a reminder that the past five years have been a welcome respite from overly inquisitive students."

She was quite sure he had meant the comment to wound. Why, she wasn't precisely sure. Old habit, or something else? "Did you have so very many? As I recall, you seemed to have most of your pupils fairly cowed."

"Most," and his eyebrow lifted almost infinitesimally, "but not all."

No, she had refused to be intimidated. She had been at Hogwarts to learn, after all, and meekly going along with what a professor had to say simply because he was the professor had not been her style at all. Severus Snape's expertise had never been in question, but his blatant favoritism toward the Slytherins in her classes hadn't sat well with her. As for the outright insults, well, she had pushed them to the back of her mind over the years, but she had never forgotten them. Not entirely.

"You can't learn without asking questions, or challenging well-worn ideas," she stated. "I don't think that qualifies as overly inquisitive. Or would you have preferred a simple regurgitation of facts without any thought given to the reason why a certain combination of ingredients works a certain way? Why, Professor Slughorn actually encouraged us to try new methods -- "

"Do not preach to me about Horace Slughorn's sterling qualities," Snape said. The muscles along his jaw line appeared to tighten, then relax. "I'm sure if you truly examined those halcyon days in his Potions classroom, you would find that the most encouragement was directed at those students he found worthy of coddling, to buy himself some influence with a student whose family he deemed powerful. I think you would find it a rare circumstance indeed where Professor Slughorn would give praise simply for its own sake."

This coolly bitter statement felt a little too close to some of her own private thoughts regarding Slughorn's blatant social climbing. She searched for a convincing rebuttal, rejected several, and then replied, "That very well may be. It doesn't change the fact that he encouraged original thinking and allowed lively discussion in the classroom."

For a moment Professor Snape said nothing. Then his shoulders lifted in a dismissive shrug. "Of course you would see it that way."

Was it worth continuing the argument? Probably not. It was clear to Hermione that Snape was just as inflexible now as he had been years ago. Silly to think he might have changed…that the horrors he had suffered might have wrought some transformation in a personality bitter as the wormwood used in so many of his potions.

Considering everything he had gone through, she supposed he had every right to be bitter. Frustrated love, years of leading a double life, scornful students, and distant co-workers -- when she thought of it that way, Hermione supposed it was something of a miracle that he'd accomplished as much as he had. Would she have been able to show that kind of strength?

She hoped she would never have to find out.

"We'll need torches," she said, in an attempt to move the conversation back to the reason why they were both here at Hogwarts. "Those cellars must be dark, and of course any light spells will be useless."

To his credit, Snape didn't even blink. "Your plan? I doubt very much that Hogsmeade would stock such Muggle technology."

No, more's the pity. She replied, "I thought I would leave the school grounds, Apparate back to London, and borrow a few from my parents' house." That would be easier than trying to purchase them. She hadn't brought any Muggle money with her, and so she'd have to go home first to get the necessary cash before she could even attempt a shopping trip.

A frown line appeared between his brows and then, unexpectedly, a slight smile touched his mouth. "I have a better idea."

"What?"

"Finish your breakfast first."

His peremptory tone irked her, but Hermione knew Snape was right. They couldn't do anything until they were done eating, so the sooner she finished what was on her plate, the sooner they could return to the task at hand. She took a few gulps of warm, sugary tea and then made short work of the remaining bacon and eggs on her plate.

Snape attended to his own breakfast without further comment, and within a few minutes he was done as well. He stood, ungracefully prying himself out from between the bench and the table. Hermione suppressed a grin.

The house-elves hurried to start clearing the table before she and Snape had even reached the door. She felt a twinge but knew there was no point in offering to help -- they'd only refuse, and it was clear from the Potions master's purposeful stride that he would never stop to wait for her.

He swept out into the corridor and back up to the main floor, then down a narrow corridor that branched off the hallway which led to McGonagall's office. Hermione found herself jogging a little to keep up. At first she couldn't quite make out where he was headed, but then she realized it was because his destination was a place she had always tried to avoid.

Filch's office.

Snape paused outside the door. "Have you a hairpin?"

"A what?"

"A hairpin?"

Mystified, she reached back and plucked out one of the pins that more or less kept her unruly locks out of her face. Unfortunately, hairpins were something she usually had an abundance of.

He took it from her, unbent it, and then neatly snapped it in two. "Filch never bothers with spells, Squib that he is."

"Couldn't you just knock?" she inquired. She had a fairly good notion of what he intended to do with that hairpin.

"Pointless. Professor McGonagall had him leave with the majority of the staff. I hear he's gone snipe shooting."

Hermione didn't bother to ask where Snape had picked up that particular tidbit. For all she knew, he'd had a secret convo with the Headmistress that morning, or even late last night.

The lock proved recalcitrant, but after a few moments (during which Hermione was sure he'd muttered a choice curse or two under his breath, even though she couldn't make out the words), it gave an audible click, and the door swung inward.

A smell of stale fish wafted out into the hallway. She wrinkled her nose and followed Snape into Filch's sanctuary.

An oil lamp hung overhead, and the small space felt cluttered, what with the overstuffed filing cabinet in one corner and the large cupboard off to the left with a conspicuous sign that read "Confiscated and Highly Dangerous." A bulky desk and its attendant chairs filled up the rest of the room.

Snape went at once to the cupboard and scowled. "This would have been easier if Filch had trusted magic to keep this locked. As it is -- " He lifted his makeshift lock picks and went to work once more.

The action seemed wildly out of character for a man who had spent most of his life ensconced in one of Britain's most magical places.

"Wherever did you learn to pick locks?" Hermione asked.

He didn't look up. "I was born in the Muggle world just as you were, Miss Granger. Certain skills seemed valuable enough that I took the time to learn them. I assume you know how to work a computer?"

"Of course I do."

"Well, then."

She wasn't quite sure knowing how to use a computer was on a par with a skill usually associated with people of dubious moral character, but she managed to hold her tongue. Actually, she couldn't help being a bit fascinated by the painstaking process, the way he inserted one pick in the lock whilst fiddling with the other -- presumably to manipulate the tumblers in some way. Of course it was far more work than simply uttering "_Alohomora!_", but it did have the advantage of being effective no matter what the current state of magic might be.

"Ah," he said, as the heavy lock fell to the stone floor.

The cabinet doors opened to reveal all sorts of interesting objects -- oddly shaped mirrors, pouches that bulged with goodness knows what, a veritable stack of sneezing powder. Hermione couldn't even identify half of the items. She had a sneaking suspicion that a good number had been produced by the Weasley twins.

Snape, however, reached past all those fascinating objects for a large cardboard box marked "Muggle Artifacts." After pulling it out, he went to the desk and set the box down, then lifted its lid.

"I thought so," he said with some satisfaction.

Hermione peered inside. She saw several torches, portable music players ranging from old-fashioned cassette decks to the latest MP3 devices, a plethora of cell phones, even what looked like some sort of GPS contraption.

"What on earth?" she asked. Why would students bring these items to a place where they knew they wouldn't work?

"You're Muggleborn," he replied, again with a hint of that infuriating smirk. "You didn't bring anything like this with you to Hogwarts?"

Irritation flared. "Of course not," she snapped. "I read the rules. I knew Muggle artifacts wouldn't work here at the school."

"Yes, you read the rules. But many students are, shall we say, not quite so thorough. In their excitement over coming to Hogwarts, they sometimes bring items that were part of the Muggle lives back home. Most of the time they're ignored. But Filch hates them -- and if he sees anything that smacks of Muggle technology, he confiscates it."

Despite herself, Hermione had to admire Snape for remembering that useful piece of information. Certainly it saved them quite a bit of time to acquire the torches here rather than her having to go all the way to London for them.

"Then all we have to do is hope that at least one of them has some decent batteries," she said cheerfully, and reached into the box to draw out a sleek little black torch that looked as if it had come straight out of one of her father's high-end gadget catalogs.

That one did work, as well as the larger aluminum one Snape selected. Several others were dead, or the next thing to it, although Hermione found a tiny one that snuggled into the palm of her hand and would work well enough as backup if either of the larger torches failed. She slipped it into her cloak pocket.

"Back to the kitchens, then?"

"No," Professor Snape replied. "You can access the cellars from the main corridor in the dungeons. Follow me."

Which she did, reflecting that even with all her nocturnal wanderings through Hogwarts, of course she couldn't have gained as thorough a knowledge of the place as Severus Snape, who had lived here for most of his adult life. He led her down a short flight of stairs to the dungeons, through another hallway, and then to a wooden trapdoor set into the stone floor. Although their way to this point had been illuminated by a series of candles set in sconces along the wall, Snape switched on the torch he carried.

"I believe it will be quite dark from here on out."

That sounded ominous. Affecting an air of nonchalance, Hermione twisted the handle of her torch so that the narrow, powerful beam focused on the door at their feet. "Shall we, then?"

He bent down and grasped the ring set in the center of the door and pulled it open, revealing a square of unrelieved black. After angling her torch, she could see a series of stone steps leading downward, but at first it had looked very much as if they were supposed to jump into that darkness and hope for the best.

_Of course you've been in worse places than this_, Hermione told herself as she descended the stairway, the circular beam of her torch seeming woefully inadequate against the Stygian blackness that surrounded her. _The vaults at Gringotts -- that was a tight shave. And let's not forget about the dungeons under Malfoy Manor. Or --_

"This is the fifth cellar," said Snape. "If I recall correctly, they were counted east to west, so if we go to our left, we should make our way eventually to the seventh cellar."

He sounded matter-of-fact and not at all concerned. Then again, he'd spent his own amount of time in dark places, hadn't he? Still, it was reassuring to have him there beside her in the gloom.

Holding her torch in front of her, Hermione moved to the left, Snape so close behind that occasionally she thought she could feel the rustle of his robes as they caught the edges of her own cloak. The combination of her beam and the one from his larger torch was just enough to show a low-ceilinged chamber filled with barrels of all different shapes and sizes. It was a bit treacherous to navigate, but eventually they reached a doorway that must lead to the sixth cellar.

No lock here, fortunately, just a large iron ring set in the center of the door. The chamber beyond was much the same as the one they just left, although this room's contents consisted of sacks piled high -- with flour and rice and other grains, she supposed.

All too soon they reached another door.

"The seventh cellar," Hermione said. Thank goodness her voice sounded steady enough.

"Presumably," agreed Snape. "Would you like to do the honors?"

Actually, she wasn't sure she did, but to make such an admission was unthinkable. "Of course," she replied. "It's just -- "

"Just what?"

She knew he would laugh at her, but she said it anyway. "What if there really is something terrible in there?"

"Then I suggest we run, as neither one of us is equipped for magical dueling at the moment and Filch's store was woefully lacking in firearms."

His comment wrung a weak chuckle out of her, but he had a point. They were here on a fact-finding mission, not to engage an enemy -- if there was one of course.

Biting her lip, she reached out and swung open the door.


	5. Chapter 5

Thank you to everyone for the reviews, alerts, and favorites -- I just love seeing those notices in my inbox! :-)

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V

More blackness, of course. Her flashlight beam caught on sacks piled high into virtual mountains against the walls. Naturally, the various root vegetables stored here would be kept in burlap bags. She wondered if any spells had been cast to keep the potatoes and rutabagas and such fresh, and whether those spells even still worked.

_I suppose it would depend on who had cast them_, she thought, as she moved forward into the cellar. Even the sweep of her robes against the stone floor seemed unnaturally loud. _If it's the house-elves' responsibility to do such things, then I suppose the spells would still hold, but —_

Her thoughts broke off then, as she thought she saw a flicker of movement on the far side of the room. She stopped abruptly.

Snape's voice, pitched just above a whisper. "You saw it."

"I saw -- something." Nothing tangible, just the barest hint of motion. It could have been rats, she supposed, although there wasn't anything particularly reassuring in that thought, either.

His flashlight beam raked the room, probing into the shadows. Hermione moved her own flashlight so its narrower, more focused ray joined with his.

A flash of gold, slanted and malevolent. That was the only impression her mind could grasp. The shape…had no shape. It roiled and twisted in the darkness, seeming to take the shadows in the room upon itself, black swallowing black.

She stepped backward. Her foot tangled in her robes and she stumbled. If it hadn't been for Professor Snape reaching out to catch her, she might have fallen. But his arms went around her, keeping her from doing herself any more harm than a wrenched ankle. A shock went up her right leg, a stabbing pain that was compounded as he set her upright and then propelled her back toward the door.

The pounding of her heart wasn't quite enough to drown out the rustle behind her. Whatever that thing was, it was moving straight toward them. But fear made her ignore the throbbing in her ankle, and she ran.

At least she hadn't dropped the flashlight. Its beam touched the iron ring in the door, and with a gasp of relief she grasped it and pulled the door open. It wasn't until she and Snape had reached the relative safety of the sixth cellar that she realized he had purposely hung back, as if to block her from the monster which had made the seventh cellar its home.

A scraping sound, and the door shuddered once, twice. Instinctively, she backed away, even as Professor Snape again moved to stand between her and the creature. But it seemed to decide that the heavy oaken door was too much of a barrier, for after that initial assault an uneasy silence fell.

_Chivalry?_ she wondered then, and gave a quick glance upward at the Potions master. Or merely a cold-blooded assessment that he was larger and stronger than she, and therefore more capable of fighting off the unknown monster they had faced?

Hermione didn't know. All she did know was that they seemed to be safe…for now.

"Have you ever seen anything like that before?" she asked.

"No." Was it her imagination, or did he sound just a bit out of breath? "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine. Bit of a twist to my ankle, but I don't think it's sprained." Now that the adrenaline had begun to ebb somewhat, she paused to evaluate the damage. Not much, she decided, after she put her weight on her foot and shifted from side to side. "Just a wrench. I suppose I should have worn a shorter cloak."

"Indeed." To her surprise, he offered her his free arm. "This will make the return trip go more quickly."

She could have argued, but he had a point. Even though she knew she hadn't suffered any permanent damage, the truth was, her ankle did hurt. His offer of support made sense. Why, then, did it feel so odd to take his arm and lean on him as he guided her back through the maze of cellars?

_Because it's Severus Snape_, she thought. _Once upon a time I would have guessed that he'd leave me to my own fate in that cellar…and I would have been wrong._ Whether he had changed, or whether her perspective of him had simply altered with the passing of time, she couldn't guess.

"So the house-elves weren't lying," she said, more to keep her mind off the ache in her ankle than anything else. Yes, once she was safely back in the upper levels of the castle, she could start formulating plans as to how she might translate that one confused glimpse into something she could research, but for now she just wanted human voices to keep the dark and the pain at bay.

She couldn't really see Professor Snape's expression in the darkness, but a flicker of amusement edged his voice. "No, I suppose not."

They reached the door to the fifth cellar, and he opened it. Hermione saw a square of yellow light in the ceiling at the far end of the chamber, where they'd kept the trapdoor propped open. A wave of relief washed over her. At least soon they'd be out of this dank cellar.

Hauling herself up the stone stairs was tricky, since she had to keep as much weight off her right foot as possible, and of course there was no railing. The staircase was too narrow to allow them to ascend abreast. Grimly she mounted the steps, cursing her bulky clothing. Really, if she'd been thinking she would have packed some jeans and a few jumpers along with the rest of her garments. Wizard garb could be impressive and beautiful, but it wasn't always the most practical choice when it came down to maneuvering through tight spots.

But at last she emerged into the blissfully well-lit hallway, Snape only a few paces behind her. As she watched, he turned and let the heavy trapdoor fall shut once again.

"The creature appeared to have difficulty with doors, but I see no reason to give it an open invitation," he said.

Hermione repressed a shudder. Those baleful golden eyes seemed to have imprinted themselves permanently on her retinas. "No, I should say not," she replied. Then she took a few limping steps in the direction of the stairs that would lead them to Hogwarts' ground floor and gritted her teeth. This was going to be a very long walk.

At once Snape was beside her, wordlessly offering her his arm. Again it was on her lips to refuse, but since Disapparation or any other wizardly means of getting around was impossible at the moment, she let herself lean on him. It did feel a bit better when she could keep some of the weight off her right foot.

The silence between them seemed to stretch out forever. She said hurriedly, "Have you ever seen or heard of anything like that before?"

His reply was immediate. "No. It could not be a basilisk, of course, even though that was my first thought when I saw those eyes. But a basilisk would have frozen both of us immediately."

True enough. When she had been felled by the basilisk during her second year at Hogwarts, she hadn't even caught a true glimpse of the massive snake. Her memories of that time were still muddled. Sometimes in her nightmares she was haunted by glowing eyes like those she had just seen in the seventh cellar, but were they a fragment of true memory or merely a phantom image confabulated from Harry's retelling of his battle against the basilisk?

In any case, they had faced this monster and survived with nothing worse than a wrenched ankle. It seemed obvious enough that the seventh cellar's latest inhabitant wasn't a basilisk, but unfortunately, rack her brains as she might, Hermione could think of nothing else it might be. Her Care of Magical Creatures classes had given her a fairly firm grasp of the fantastic beasts that inhabited the British Isles, and indeed most of the world. This creature seemed to match none of those descriptions. Besides, she was fairly sure either Hagrid or Professor Grubbly-Plank would have mentioned a beast with the unusual ability to dampen all human magic around it.

If the beast were even the cause for magic's failure at Hogwarts.

Some expression of frustration or anxiety must have crossed her face, for Professor Snape said, "If you would like to sit down and rest a moment -- "

"No," she said at once. Her ankle hurt, but the pain was something she could tolerate, especially with him lending her a steady arm to lean upon. "Better I get back to my rooms and then rest. All it probably needs is a few hours with my weight off it, and there's an armchair and footstool in my sitting room that would be perfect for that."

He nodded and stared forward once again, his expression grim. Then again, his expression was almost always grim, so Hermione couldn't extrapolate much regarding his mood from that. Most likely he merely looked forward to depositing her in her rooms and getting her off his hands for a few hours.

She would have liked to go to the library and begin searching through the bestiaries there to see if she could unearth some bit of information she'd forgotten. But the library was clear on the other side of the castle, and it would be a bit much to ask of Professor Snape to let her cling to his arm as she hobbled her way over there. No, the most she could hope for was that her wretched ankle would feel well enough after some time off it that she could make her way to the library under her own power.

At last they reached her room, and she gratefully pushed the door inward. From there it was just a few more weary feet to that blessed overstuffed chair. She sank down into it, releasing Professor Snape's arm, then tugged the footstool a little closer and placed her feet upon it.

"Madam Pomfrey is away," he said. "I would suggest summoning a house-elf for some cold cloths."

The bell dedicated to that purpose sat on the table next to her chair. _Cold compresses and hot tea_, she told herself. _That's all I need._ She reached for the bell. She would call for one of the house-elves to assist her, and she and Snape could discuss what they had seen while her ankle recovered from its ordeal.

But that did not seem to be his intention. He gave her the smallest of nods, said, "I shall let you rest, then," and swept out of the room.

Hermione stared after him for a long moment, wondering at his haste. Then she shook her head and picked up the bell.

***

It wasn't right that he should still feel the pressure of her hand on his arm, or the weight of her body against his as he caught her in the cellar. It had been pure instinct that made him reach out to keep her from falling to the ground. It was what anyone might have done. So why did his foolish brain persist in dwelling on those sensations?

If anything, he should be focusing on that unknown creature in the seventh cellar. Some undiscovered relative of the basilisk, perhaps? The wizarding world was full of many strange and wonderful things, after all. And its fauna had never been his area of expertise.

Yes, that was better. Think of the problem, not the drift of chamomile that he'd caught from her hair, or the look of obvious gratitude she'd given him as he offered her his arm. He knew her ankle must have been painful, and yet she'd uttered not one word of complaint as they made the long trek back to her guest suite. Neither had she even stopped to rest. How many other young women could have managed as well in her situation?

Not many, he guessed. Very well, so she had some admirable qualities. And she had grown up to be quite a pretty young woman. That didn't mean he should be standing here in the hallway outside her room like a lovesick fifth year mooning after a comely classmate. There were far more important matters he should be attending to.

Scowling, he turned away from her door and strode down the hallway in the direction of the library. Hermione Granger might be brilliant and accomplished and cool in a crisis, but he still had resources that she did not. He'd been an instructor here for too many years not to know a good many of Hogwarts' secrets.

Madam Pince was a wily creature and changed the password to the staff-only private room in the library at regular intervals. However, he somehow doubted she would have thought to guard the place in a fashion that wouldn't require magic.

His suspicions were borne out when he entered the library, passed through the restricted section, and slid the panel aside that would allow entry into the tiny chamber which held books deemed too dark or dangerous or obscure for the students to read even with a professor's permission. Normally he would have been required to speak Madam Pince's latest password to gain entry, but the panel gave no resistance, instead moving quietly to one side as the spring-loaded mechanism yielded at his touch.

Once inside, he pulled the torch out of his over-robe's pocket and began scanning the shelves for likely titles. Some of the books weren't true books at all, but older parchments secured between leather covers to keep their contents safe. Several of these looked promising, and he added them to the growing stack near his feet. Bestiaries, of course, but also volumes having to do with Hogwarts' earliest days, those times now hidden in the murk of history.

At length he had a sizeable pile, one that stretched the limits of what he thought he could safely carry back to the wing where the guest apartments were located. Perhaps he could have summoned a house-elf to assist with porter duties, but he wasn't sure he wanted to trust a house-elf with such sensitive material.

_But you're willing to trust Hermione Granger with it_, he thought, and gave a little grimace. Trust was not something that came easily to him. However, she had been summoned here by Minerva McGonagall to solve this mystery, and keeping possibly vital information from her would do no one any good. Besides, as much as he hated to admit it to himself, he couldn't think of anyone better suited to combing through these dusty volumes and finding the information they both sought.

He moved as quickly as he could, considering the burden he carried. Once he reached the door to Hermione's rooms, he awkwardly shifted the books so he could reach out and knock. Her response was immediate.

"Come in."

Her face lit up when she saw him…because of the books in his arms, he told himself quickly. It couldn't be because she was that overjoyed to be back in his presence.

The smile faded, however, as she took several of the volumes from him and apparently got a good look at their titles. "Where did you get these?" she demanded. "I've never seen any of these books before."

In anyone else, the presumption that she could have memorized the title of every book in the Hogwarts library would have been laughable. In Hermione's case, Snape suspected it was nothing more than the truth.

"The staff-only room," he said. "Surely you didn't think every volume in the library was freely available to the students?"

"As a matter of fact, I did," she retorted. "Purposely withholding valuable information like that? It goes against everything education is supposed to be about!"

For some reason her indignation amused him rather than the opposite, as might have been the case in the not-too-distant past. He didn't want to stop to consider why his attitude might have suffered such an alteration.

"Some information is dangerous," he drawled. "Not all students were as accomplished as you, Miss Granger. It's entirely possible someone could have done himself an injury."

Her mouth compressed into a tight line. Rather, he had the impression she was attempting an imitation of one of his famous scowls, but her full mouth made it veer dangerously into pout territory. He repressed a smile of his own.

"I'm sure there could have been a way to allow students access to those materials in a controlled fashion," she said. "Just because you persist in the belief that all students are dunderheads doesn't make it a fact."

He forbore from replying that it wasn't his belief that all students were dunderheads. No, it was an indisputable truth borne out from far too many years of grading incomprehensible essays and watching expensive potions ingredients destroyed by cack-handed fools who couldn't be trusted to butter a biscuit.

"That is a discussion for another time," he replied. "For now, I would suggest it might be of more use to actually study these materials to see if they can yield any information as to the identity of our yellow-eyed friend in the cellar."

At once her expression shifted from annoyance to remorse. "You're right, of course." She opened the topmost book from the stack in her lap and murmured, "Amazing. This is a description of the building of Hogwarts itself, from one of Rowena Ravenclaw's first students."

"I'm sure it's fascinating, but unless the author is describing how no one could practice magic at the castle and the means they used to remedy the situation, I'm not sure it's of much value."

Hermione let out a little sigh, then gave a reluctant nod. "True, I suppose. I just wish -- " A shake of the head, followed by a rueful smile. "Knowledge for its own sake is a wonderful thing, but I know for now it's necessary to stick with the task at hand." She set that book aside, then picked up the next one.

"I shall go through these," Snape said, indicating the books he still held. "If I find anything of interest, I will of course let you know." He turned to leave, but her voice stopped him.

"Don't go."

Incredulous, he glanced back at her. A flush had risen in her cheeks, but her eyes didn't flicker as they met his. She went on, "That is, I should think it might be more valuable if we looked over this material together. That way we could compare notes on the spot. Don't you think so?"

Of course. It made sense, he supposed. Stupid for him to have thought she had any reason for him to stay other than the fact that two heads were, as they say, better than one.

In reply, he moved across the room and retrieved a chair from the small table by the window. Then he set his stack of books on the side table next to her chair.

"Let's get started," he said.


	6. Chapter 6

Sorry it took me a bit longer to post this than I would have liked -- life's been hectic, and then I got sick (and then the dog ate my homework). Anyway, thank you for your patience, and thank you for your lovely reviews!

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VI

Concentration was not something Hermione had much difficulty with, but for some reason she couldn't seem to maintain focus on the pages before her. Perhaps it was the continuous soft rustle from a few feet away as Professor Snape flipped the leaves while he worked away at his own stack of books. Or perhaps it was merely frustration at having to quickly scan the precious materials he'd brought from the teachers-only section of the library instead of giving each volume the close attention it deserved.

In any case, she found herself continually glancing up to see how her companion fared. Better in terms of attention, it seemed; his expression was abstracted, his black eyes flickering as they absorbed the contents of a page and then moved on. The day outside was dark, the sky heavy with clouds, so a number of candelabras provided the illumination for their studies. Their light softened the lines around his eyes and caught warm little flickers in his hair.

_You are completely daft_, Hermione told herself as she closed a volume of wizard history and reached for another book. _Why on earth are you staring at Severus Snape when there's work to be done?_

She had no answer that; at least, no answer she was currently willing to acknowledge. As she opened the book she held, she realized that tomorrow was Christmas Eve. Why that should make any difference, she wasn't sure. She'd already resigned herself to being far from home during the holiday. Ron would be furious, of course. Then again, lately it seemed Ron was angry with her more often than not, no matter what she did.

"It's almost Christmas," she said.

Professor Snape didn't look up from his book. "And?"

"I suppose it just seems odd to think that we'll be spending it here."

Then he did glance over at her. "So little confidence in our sleuthing skills? Perhaps we'll find the answer this afternoon, and then you can be on your way back to London and the no-doubt pining Mr. Weasley."

"That would be lovely," she replied, refusing to be baited. "But considering the fact that I haven't found anything yet, and neither have you, and that we still have a very large stack of material yet to get through -- "

"Ye of little faith," he interrupted. His mouth twisted as he gave her the sort of smirk she remembered all too well from her days in his classroom. "Will you feel better if I promise to drink a cup of wassail with you? I draw the line at singing carols or giving presents, however."

She scowled. "As if I would ever ask such things of you, Professor Scrooge."

To her surprise, the smirk transformed itself into something that closely resembled a real smile before disappearing altogether. "If it's any consolation, I'm sure the house-elves will roast us a goose fit to rival the one from the story. And I daresay Minerva will be glad of our company."

Of course. Strange that Severus Snape should be the one to point out to her that Professor McGonagall would have a very lonely holiday indeed with all the students and almost all of the staff gone. Hermione wasn't sure who still lingered at the school, but guessed that Madam Sprout had stayed on. She had always been at Hogwarts for the holidays; presumably she had no relatives she could visit.

Hermione thought it would almost be worth missing Christmas with her friends and family if she could provide support for Professor McGonagall during this very difficult time. And if she and Professor Snape somehow did manage to solve the mystery of the beast in the seventh cellar before then, it would make a wonderful present for the Headmistress.

"I hope this mission isn't keeping you from your own celebrations, Professor," Hermione said, her tone somewhat arch. She suspected quite the opposite, but that snide comment about the "pining Mr. Weasley" had gotten under her skin more than she had thought it would.

He shut the book he was holding with a snap. "Is this your oblique way of trying to discern where I've been and what I've been doing for the past five years?"

His voice sounded suspiciously bland, but there was a glitter in his black eyes that should have told her to leave well enough alone. Hermione said, "Well, since you did let everyone believe you were dead -- "

"And I would like you to take care to keep it that way," he cut in. "I owe the wizarding world nothing."

"Then why are you here?" she asked.

Silence then, accompanied by an angry flash of those night-dark eyes. Without replying, he reached out and picked up another book, then opened it.

She didn't quite know why she continued to press him, but there was something liberating about being on an equal footing with him for once. Before, she had always been the student. But now she was an adult, a woman with a life of her own and her own standing in the wizarding community. She refused to let him intimidate her.

"You could have said no, couldn't you?"

Another pause. Then he looked up from his book and fastened her with a cold, black glare. "You are very young, Miss Granger." At once he returned his attention to the pages of the hide-backed volume he held.

For a few seconds Hermione could only seethe inwardly. Young? In years, perhaps, but certainly not in experience. Why, there were elderly wizards on the Wizengamot who had never confronted the sorts of dangers she'd faced in the war with Voldemort. How dare Severus Snape be so dismissive, so contemptuous of the person she had been and the woman she had become?

"Do you want me to reply that you're old, Professor Snape?" she retorted. "Because that's not true, and you know it. Are you really that willing to be a hermit and turn your back on the world when your life is barely half over?"

This time he shut the book carefully before turning a withering stare on her. "What I do with my life is no concern of yours. Now, I would suggest applying yourself to that stack of books, or I fear we'll be toasting in the New Year before we manage to solve this mystery."

His tone had a note of finality that allowed no further argument. Hermione settled for shooting him a sharp glance of her own before she returned her attention to the volume she held. What rankled the most was that he had spoken the simple truth. His life and how he chose to live it should be of little interest to her. Her focus should be discovering the identity of the beast in the seventh cellar, not meddling in Severus Snape's personal affairs.

Why, then, did she feel a stirring of disquiet deep within, as if some part of her cared more than she was willing to admit?

***

He had upset her, he could tell. Served her right, with all her poking and prodding. What difference could it possibly make to her whether he spent the rest of his life rotting in that little cottage in Cornwall?

Still, Snape couldn't completely ignore the little pang he felt as he saw her bite her lip and ostentatiously smooth the pages of the book she was holding. A spot of color burned high on each cheekbone. She studiously avoided looking at him.

Perhaps there was something else he should have said, but he had no talent for smoothing ruffled feathers. And really, she had no right to ask him those sorts of questions. Typical Granger behavior. Clever enough, of course, but she could be woefully lacking in tact.

He didn't want to admit to himself that he took offense at her behavior because it resembled his own a little too closely.

In silence he set his own book aside and went on to the next one in the pile on the table. It was worse than looking for the proverbial needle in the haystack; if one truly needed to find a needle in a pile of hay, a simple magnetizing spell would do the trick. But no spell had been invented that could magically extract the necessary information from a stack of books almost higher than his head.

He wouldn't allow himself to sigh, but he did feel a distinct lack of enthusiasm as he thumbed through the pages of the volume he had selected. Nothing of note, as far as he could tell -- merely an account from a disciple of Helga Hufflepuff's about their attempts to catalogue the flora surrounding Hogwarts.

Just as he was about to cast the book aside, a chance phrase caught his eye. He forced himself to stop and reread it.

_Barthelemy Endicott and Justinia Pugh also reported the same curious cessation of magic in a valley a few furlongs from the castle proper. I had thought it merely my own weariness, but it appears some outside force is affecting all our ability to perform even rudimentary spells. The field of effect is not overly large; once we were back at Hogwarts, our powers appeared to reassert themselves. We plan to set forth on the morrow with colleagues from the other Houses to investigate further._

Snape could feel his heart begin to beat a little more quickly, but he managed to keep his face a mask of cool indifference. "I may have found something."

Hermione's head jerked up at once. "What?"

"Here," he replied, and read the pertinent passage aloud to her. "It continues, _The next day, all the members of our party experienced the same thing -- none of us could perform any magic in that hidden little dell. This is a cause for enough concern that we believe the Founders should be involved._"

"That must be it," Hermione broke in. Her eyes were glowing, all previous upset apparently erased. "So what happened?"

"I'm getting to that," he answered, a little testily. He returned his attention to the page in front of him, scanning its contents for the pertinent selections. "It appears that three of the Founders -- I see no mention of Salazar Slytherin -- returned to the valley with their pupils. They, too, were unable to perform magic, but -- " he paused, and then picked up the thread of the tale, " -- here it says, _We followed the spoor to a shallow cave almost hidden behind a screen of blackberry brambles. All was darkness within, but we saw golden eyes glowing far back. After some debate, Godric Gryffindor and several of his larger and burlier students entered the cave. The creature hissed like the serpent it resembled, but we soon saw it was only defending a clutch of eggs hidden at the very rear of the cavern._"

"It must be another one of them," Hermione said. "Of course we couldn't see any eggs, but naturally the creature must have attacked us because it thought we were threatening its offspring."

He had reached the same conclusion but did not wish to agree with her too readily. "That is one theory."

"The only logical one."

This time he couldn't quite repress a sigh. "May I continue?"

"Of course." An impish glint from those big brown eyes. "Pardon me for interrupting you, Professor Snape."

No point in responding to her too-sweet tone. Instead, he returned his attention to the page and said, "The next few paragraphs are blurred and unreadable -- something was most likely spilled on the page. But it goes on to say, _Against Professor Hufflepuff's wishes, the consensus was that we should remove the creature from Hogwarts' environs. We could not risk it wandering closer to the castle and disrupting our studies. But we also did not wish to hurt it or kill it, for it bore no malice toward us, but merely affected those with magical abilities because of its own inborn traits. _

"_At length a large cage was constructed. We trapped the creature and carried it and its eggs far away, over rough ground made more onerous by the fact that of course we could not levitate the cage or Apparate ourselves to our destination. No, the slog was made over many miles of perilous terrain, until we reached another hidden valley where we deemed the creature could be safe. And there we left it, and made haste to depart. Once we had put a little over a mile between us and the creature, our powers returned. We Disapparated to Hogwarts, glad that we did not have to make the return journey on foot. Notes were made to keep an eye out for the creature in case it ever returned to Hogwarts. But for now at least we are free of it._"

"If only this book hadn't been locked up in the teachers-only section," Hermione commented, still in that treacly tone of voice, one which reminded him uncomfortably of Dolores Umbridge…one that he guessed Hermione had deliberately adopted in order to needle him. "Then perhaps people would still be aware of the danger that could return to Hogwarts."

"And perhaps some would have taken it upon themselves to hunt these creatures, whose only crime is an inborn ability to block the powers of witches and wizards," he retorted. "Hundreds of years have passed, and only now has it returned. Who knows why, except the past few winters have been exceptionally hard. It may have only been returning to territory that was once hospitable, following its instincts the way birds fly south for the winter."

At once her expression sobered, and the glint disappeared from her eyes. "You're right, of course."

Would he have been so quick to agreement if their roles had been reversed? Most likely not. But Hermione, while proud in her own way, had always been one to follow the most logical course. How someone so clever and admirably hard-headed had ended up with a whimsical fool like Ron Weasley, Snape couldn't begin to imagine. Perhaps it was an ongoing hangover from teenage hormones. He'd long ago abandoned any attempt at understanding the human heart.

"At least we can be reasonably certain that it wishes us no harm," she continued. "While I suppose I've faced worse in my time, I'll admit I wasn't particularly looking forward to confronting an inimical monster while being deprived of my powers. I was beginning to wonder if I'd have to ring up my Uncle Brendan and ask if I could borrow his hunting rifle."

The image of Hermione Granger armed with a rifle and hunting monsters in the Hogwarts cellar was so incongruous that Snape let out a chuckle despite himself. She looked back at him, apparently a little shocked that the stony-faced Potions master had actually deigned to make a sound of amusement. Then her mouth curved in a grin.

"To be fair, I'm not sure that rifle even works," she said. "I've just seen it hanging on the wall of his study when we've gone visiting during the holidays."

"No need for that. It seems obvious enough that we merely need to trap the creature and remove it -- and its eggs -- from the Hogwarts grounds."

"'Merely'?" she echoed. "At least back in the Founders' day they had a large enough group of people to carry the thing out of the vicinity. Right now we've got you, me, Professor McGonagall, and Madam Sprout. I don't think either of them is quite up to hauling a creature that probably weighs at least twenty stone overland for miles, and unless you've been lifting weights in your spare time, I doubt you are, either."

He couldn't argue with that, much as he would have liked to. Strange how one took magic so for granted -- it was like knowing there was air to breathe and ground beneath one's feet. Take it away, and things that once would have been so simple immediately became a logistical nightmare.

"No," he said. Much as he would have liked to say he was up to the task, he knew that was madness. Oh, he'd managed to stay fit and strong enough, thanks to his efforts in his garden and the rambling walks he took near his adopted home in Cornwall, but he knew his own limitations better than anyone. "A cart, perhaps? There may be something in Hogsmeade we can use. Innately magical creatures don't seem to be affected -- witness the house-elves' continuing use of their abilities -- so the thestrals -- "

He broke off abruptly, for Hermione had begun to laugh.

"I fail to see the humor in the situation."

"Oh, I'm not laughing at you," she said, then paused. "Well, perhaps I am, just a bit. I suppose I'm finding it rather funny that we're both trying to solve this by thinking like wizards."

"Well, how else should we solve it, pray?" Really, he saw very little to laugh at. Perhaps they had at least managed to track down the source of the magical disruption at the school, but removing the creature was not going to be easy. Not at all.

Her lips pursed as she appeared to consider his question. "We've already established that human-created magic doesn't work anywhere within the vicinity of the creature. So all the spells protecting Hogwarts -- all the spells that keep Muggle devices from working -- have to be nullified. We can't solve this the wizard way, so we'll solve it the Muggle way."

A suspicion as to where all this might be heading began to niggle at the back of Snape's mind. He wasn't sure he liked it at all.

"It's so simple, really," she concluded. "All I have to do is procure a lorry and a cage. I'll just drive right up to Hogwarts' front entrance. We'll trap the creature, load it on the vehicle, and take it out of here. A few hours on the road should get it safely away."

He thought he could come up with a few hundred objections to her plan but settled for the most obvious. "You can drive?" he asked, in tones of deep suspicion.

"Of course I can," she said breezily. "My parents made sure I learnt. We're closest to Aberdeen -- I'm sure I can rent a lorry there. I don't know about a deposit, but I suppose I could get one of my parents to wire me the money if necessary."

Now she was dragging her parents into this. Would they inquire as to why their daughter the witch suddenly needed to procure a vehicle in Aberdeen, or were they now so inured to the ongoing madness of her life that they no longer bothered to ask questions?

He wished he could protest, but he had no reasonable alternatives. Hogwarts and the rest of the wizarding world had sheltered him for a very long time, but he'd spent his early years living the life of a Muggle. No one would question a lorry going about its business. A cart and a horse, if they'd even been able to find one? Sure to raise a few eyebrows at the very least. And using a thestral would be even worse. Perhaps a spectator would find a cart and horse trudging along the road charmingly Luddite, but a cart that appeared to move of its own volition? He didn't want to imagine what a Muggle's reaction to that spectacle might be.

"We still have to find a cage," he said sourly, but it was only a token protest. For better or worse, it seemed they would have to follow Hermione's hare-brained plan. He couldn't seem to come up with a better alternative.

Still, he found himself hoping that she could pilot a Muggle vehicle a bit better than she could a broom….


	7. Chapter 7

Thank you for the reviews, everyone! Sorry I was a little slow about posting this chapter -- I'm still fighting a nasty sinus infection, and I haven't been feeling terrible motivated.

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VII

The lorry's shocks were practically nonexistent, and, judging by the unpleasant aroma emanating from the engine compartment, it burned oil, too. But beggars couldn't be choosers, and Hermione knew she'd been lucky to even find a rental agency open so late in the day, let alone one that offered the newest and shiniest models. She'd procured the largest vehicle she could manage with her license and had to hope it would be sufficient.

The cage had been a bit more difficult. A search of the grounds around Hagrid's cottage hadn't turned up anything useful, so Hermione and Snape had decided to find the cage elsewhere.

Unfortunately, a pen large enough to contain the creature in the basement wasn't the sort of thing one could find in the corner pet shop. Hermione had found herself compelled to indulge in a bit of wizardly larceny and at last resorted to lifting a cage from a shed at the Hayfield horse center. She left behind what cash she had remaining after paying the extortionate amount the rental agency had demanded for the use of the lorry, but she still felt like a thief.

Thankfully, the place had been deserted, and at least here in Aberdeen, far away from the creature's influence, she could use her magic to deposit the cage in the lorry's bed before hurrying off at speeds that didn't help the balding tires' condition any. And thank goodness she'd persuaded Severus Snape that she would be better off procuring the rental on her own. He remained at Hogwarts, keeping an eye on the seventh cellar in case the beast suddenly decided it wanted a change of scene.

Now she had a chance to gather her thoughts as she negotiated the unfamiliar route and alternately cursed the balky clutch and the poorly plowed roads. She wouldn't do anyone any favors by skidding off the highway and ending up in a ditch. Then again, this vehicle didn't seem to be capable of the sorts of speeds that could get her into any real trouble.

Before she left Hogwarts, she'd run up to the Owlery and dispatched a quick note to Ron telling him she doubted very much she'd be back in time for the Christmas Eve festivities at the Burrow. Perhaps it had been premature, but she thought it would be better to prepare him for disappointment rather than cancel at the last minute. There was a slim chance that she could get back to Hogwarts, retrieve the creature, take it a safe distance, and return the lorry before then, but --

She shook her head at herself. Already it was past six o'clock. The proprietor of the rental place had informed her that he would be closed through Boxing Day, so she'd had to pay for several days more rental than she required. Even if her mission was accomplished in a timely manner, she'd still have to come back to Scotland to return the lorry. Frankly, at the moment she thought she had a better chance of getting Professor Snape to sing "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen" and kiss her under the mistletoe than she did of spending a cozy holiday at the Burrow.

Her cheeks suddenly felt burning hot in the cold air of the lorry's cab. What on earth was she thinking, to consider a kiss from Severus Snape…even in jest?

_Exhaustion_, she thought. _That must be it. Not enough sleep. Too much on my mind._

All perfectly good excuses. She should just accept them as such and stop thinking such ridiculous things. But somehow she couldn't quite dismiss the shockingly vivid image that blazed through her mind, one that involved Severus Snape pulling her into his arms and bending down to press his mouth against hers. She already knew that his body felt lean and strong. She knew what it was like for him to hold her, even if only for a few seconds.

Had it started when he caught her after she had tripped in the cellar? Or was it even earlier, during the breakfast they had shared? Or --

Did it really matter? The mere fact that she didn't find the thought of a kiss from Severus Snape completely repulsive was problematic enough. Knowing which tectonic shift caused an earthquake didn't alter the damage it caused.

She curled her fingers around the worn plastic of the steering wheel and forced herself to concentrate on the road. Very likely she was just off-kilter from being stuck here for Christmas, and her tumultuous relationship with Ron of late probably wasn't helping, either. It wouldn't be the first time someone started looking for greener pastures just because the ones they were currently occupying had begun to seem a little brown.

Of course, the mere notion of viewing Severus Snape as "greener pastures" should be cause for alarm. Never mind the fact that he hadn't shown one bit of interest in her that way. No, she'd just treat this episode as temporary insanity and push all thoughts of mistletoe and anything else even vaguely provocative right out of her mind.

Easier said than done, unfortunately. The radio in the lorry was broken, so she couldn't turn on some music to keep her brain from dwelling on the forbidden. All she seemed able to think of was Severus and the steady strength of his arm under hers as he guided her back to her rooms, or the brief glances of grudging approval he'd given her over the past few days. It wasn't much to go on, of course, but grudging approval from Severus Snape was glowing praise from anyone else.

Very well -- if she couldn't keep her mind off him, then she might as well try to be logical about it. Was she merely manufacturing an unexpected attraction for her former teacher just so she wouldn't have to confront her true feelings about Ron?

Her brain wanted to shy away from that question, but Hermione wouldn't let herself dodge the issue. Part of being an adult was facing unattractive truths. So why was she finding it so hard to admit that some time during the past few years her relationship with Ron had become more of a habit than anything else?

_Because it would kill Harry_, she thought suddenly. _It was supposed to be the four of us living happily ever after._ And out of loyalty or stubbornness or sheer stupid blindness she'd gone doggedly forward, trying her best to ignore the niggling undercurrent of dissatisfaction that had colored her life for longer than she wanted to acknowledge. It was easy enough to blame her malaise on outside causes -- the too-slow pace of house-elf liberation, the bullheaded bureaucracy at the Ministry, even the dingy weather or her noisy neighbors. Anything but admitting that she was, to put it baldly, bored out of her mind, weary of Ron's obsession with Quidditch, and tired of the blank looks she got whenever she tried to direct their conversations toward more intellectually rewarding subjects.

That could have been the reason she'd accepted this assignment with alacrity, despite her misgivings about being far from home so close to Christmas. The mission had given her an excuse to get away, one that even Ron couldn't contest.

_How on earth is someone supposed to know who or what they want for the rest of their life when they're only seventeen?_ she wondered then, as she slowed down to take the barely visible turnoff that would bring her to Hogwarts. As far as she was concerned, this notion of setting one's future path at such an early age was a flaw too deeply embedded in wizard culture. At least Muggles went on to university, or learned a trade, or backpacked around Europe or South America or what-have-you. In the wizarding world, by your seventh year you were expected to choose the specialty that would guide the remainder of your adult days. And that same sort of expectation spilled over into their personal lives. Wizards tended to marry young -- at least the ones she knew personally. That could have been a byproduct of the uncertainty of the War years, but the practice showed little sign of abating any time soon.

Did other Muggle-borns wrestle with these sorts of issues? She didn't know, since she really didn't count any among her circle of close friends. Perhaps, although the tendency was for those of Muggle and mixed blood to ignore the nonmagical world almost completely.

The lorry jounced up and down along the rutted track that snaked through Hogwarts' outlying grounds. Under normal circumstances, a Muggle vehicle would never have been able to get this close -- the driver would have suddenly discovered he or she had pressing business elsewhere. But the Muggle-repelling spells lay as dormant as all other human-devised magic in the vicinity. It was only Hogwarts' isolation, along with the fact that any roads leading to it were hardly noticeable even when not protected by spells, that had kept the outside world from discovering it during this period of vulnerability.

Hermione slowed to almost a crawl, not wanting to risk the battered lorry's ancient shocks. She was almost glad of the leisurely pace; at least it would give her some time to collect her wits before she had to confront Severus Snape.

"Well, I suppose you've had your epiphany," she said aloud to the empty cab. "Even if it isn't close to January sixth. But what are you going to do about it?"

Good question. Even if flinging herself into Snape's arms was an option -- which of course it wasn't -- she knew she'd have to resolve things one way or another with Ron before she would allow herself to even think of being with anyone else. Otherwise, it wouldn't be fair, and it certainly wouldn't be honest.

The lorry bounced off a particularly vicious rut, and Hermione set her jaw and soldiered forward. She had business yet to settle. She knew she shouldn't be making any decisions right now. Not with the task of corralling the beast in the cellars ahead of her, not to mention getting it safely away from Hogwarts.

Yet, despite this resolution to leave the matter be for now, she somehow knew her mind was made up. Even as she jolted down the road through the heavy dark, an odd lightness began to fill her. It took her a moment to realize it was simple relief.

No matter what else happened, she knew she would be happy if she never had to sit through another Quidditch match as long as she lived.

***

If Severus Snape had owned a watch, he would have glanced at it. As it was, he had to settle for pacing back and forth in front of the door to the seventh cellar. From within there came the occasional rustle, but for the most part the beast seemed quiescent.

Snape wished he could have said the same for his own turbulent thoughts.

There might have been some way he could have prevented Hermione from procuring the vehicle and driving back here alone, but he hadn't come up any convincing arguments before she took off for Aberdeen, just after she had breathlessly informed him that there wasn't a moment to waste. It wasn't as if he could have taken those transport duties on himself -- of course he had never learnt to drive. What would have been the point, when one had Apparition and the Floo network and broomsticks?

All lovely inventions…when they worked. Now he found himself in the unenviable position of being a wizard who had no magic, thus rendering him quite superfluous. He knew he would be the one providing the majority of the muscle when it came to actually caging the beast, but even that thought rankled, since it reduced him to a strong back and not much more.

He tried not to imagine the worst -- Hermione stranded on a lonely highway somewhere with a broken-down vehicle, or skidding off the road altogether because of a patch of ice or a blown tire. Accidents happened to Muggles all the time, after all. And the more he attempted to push those thoughts out of his mind, the more they seemed to crowd in.

Too many years of envisioning the worst and planning for it, he supposed. That had to be the reason for his restlessness now. He didn't want to admit that it might be because of a more particular interest in the well-being of a certain Muggle-born young witch.

He crossed his arms and glared across the dimly lit cellar. Since there was no way of lighting the room magically, he'd brought one of the candelabras from his room with him. Better to do that than waste the batteries in the torches they'd lifted from Filch's office.

After Hermione had left on her dubious errand, Snape had gone to Professor McGonagall's office to inform her of their findings and the plan to remove the creature from Hogwarts. She'd seemed relieved at first to learn that there was a relatively simple solution to the problem, but once she had thanked him for finding the answer to the mystery, she added,

"And do you truly think you and Miss Granger will be able to capture this beast on your own, with no magic to aid you?"

He'd given the matter some thought, so he was able to reply without hesitation. "Yes. I plan to enlist the house-elves' aid. They work well enough with Miss Granger, and since their magic is not affected, they will be able to cast spells to keep the creature from attacking any of us."

McGonagall's expression seemed to indicate that she wasn't entirely pleased with this scheme, but they had few options, short of going after the thing with a tranquilizer gun. Good thing he hadn't mentioned that notion to Hermione, or no doubt she would have raided the Aberdeen zoo on her way back from procuring the lorry.

"So strange that we have to resort to Muggle technology to get us out of this mess," she said. "If Professor Dumbledore were still with us, perhaps he would use this occasion to comment on the hubris of the wizarding world." A quirk of one thin eyebrow. "I, on the other hand, can only say I'm glad to know that these creatures aren't particularly fecund. Otherwise, we would have had a much larger problem to deal with."

Too true. If Scotland had suddenly swarmed with hundreds of magic-repelling monsters, then no doubt the Ministry would have undertaken a large-scale program of extermination. He'd always viewed the agency as a necessary evil, and it could be quite ham-handed when it came to managing complex issues. There was no way Kingsley Shacklebolt could have foreseen the true cause of magic's loss at Hogwarts, but it seemed that his decision to call in Snape and Hermione Granger instead of assigning the problem to a squad of Aurors had been a wise one.

Snape nodded. "As it is, we hope to have the matter well in hand very soon."

"And then?"

"And then?" he echoed. "I return to Cornwall."

A flicker of disappointment showed in her faded blue eyes and was gone. "Back to your forced exile? The wizarding world is the less for your absence, Severus. I had hoped -- that is, both Kingsley and I had hoped that, after you had completed your mission here, you might rethink your decision to live so apart from everyone."

"Hardly," he replied without thinking, but as the word left his lips he wondered if he believed his own protests. There had been something rather comforting about being back at Hogwarts, even in its changed state. He hadn't grasped quite how much he missed the place until he walked its corridors once again.

Better to blame his sudden confusion on ambivalence toward his status in general, and not a certain brown-eyed witch. As annoying as Hermione could be at times, he thought he rather enjoyed her company. A little pang struck him as he realized that he might not see her after today. Once their mission was accomplished, she had nothing to hold her here. She'd return to London and her family and friends.

And Ron Weasley.

That thought was as unpleasant as it was unwelcome. He'd muttered something to Professor McGonagall about not wanting to leave the creature unattended for too much longer, then made his retreat. Once he was back in the cellar, he found he had little to occupy himself…except his own traitorous thoughts.

Really, what was the matter with him? Exile had suited him well enough these past five years. Why on earth would he want to change that pleasantly melancholy status quo? More to the point, _who_ would make him want to change the life he had ordered for himself?

He didn't want to think of Hermione, but he couldn't help seeing her in his mind's eye, the excitement plain in her features as he read the excerpts from that long-ago Hufflepuff's diary, the way her mouth had parted slightly as she listened in rapt attention. If he were forced to admit such a thing, he would have to say that she'd grown up to have a very kissable mouth.

Insanity. She was -- well, she wasn't exactly half his age, but close enough that it made little difference. And even if that glaring discrepancy didn't matter, there was the little matter of Ronald Weasley. Or the fact that Hermione Granger was probably the last woman in the world to ever look at him as anything except her former Potions professor at best, and a bitter, sour-faced recluse at worst.

"Professor!"

He started at the sound of her voice and turned. She stood in the doorway between the fifth and the sixth cellar, one of the pilfered torches in her hand. Before setting out for Aberdeen, she'd Apparated back to her flat in order to fetch some Muggle attire, so she stood before him in jeans and a dark jumper and oversized wool coat. Above the shapeless clothing her face seemed incongruously delicate.

At least she hadn't broken down somewhere in the Scottish highlands, or skidded on a patch of ice into a ditch. He forced a deliberately casual note into his voice as he said, "Miss Granger. I assume you were successful."

"If by 'successful' you mean, was I swindled by the criminal who runs the rental agency, then yes, I was." She crossed the room to stand next to him and looked at the door to the seventh cellar. Once again he was uncomfortably aware of the fine scent that rose from her loose hair. "No change here, I see."

"No, none." He cleared his throat. "The lorry?"

"Backed right up to the castle's front entrance." For some reason she didn't quite meet his eyes as she added, "I kept thinking I was going to get struck by a bolt of lightning for such Muggle temerity, but of course nothing happened."

Snape knew the spells that once protected Hogwarts were far more subtle than that, but he didn't bother to correct her. It was difficult enough to be back in her presence, to hear the London-tinted alto of her voice and watch the terribly distracting curve of her lips. Madness. He'd just have to keep his wits about him for a few more hours. Then the creature would be gone, and she would have no reason to remain here. She would be gone as well, and he could return to his self-imposed solitude not too much the worse for wear.

"I spoke to the house-elves while you were gone," he said. "As you can imagine, they weren't terribly keen, but they have agreed to help."

"Maybe I should have been the one to talk to them."

They'd been over this before. "No need. Although if you would like to be the one to fetch them -- "

"You're ready." It wasn't a question.

"As ready as can be."

"Then I'll have them help get the cage out of the lorry. We shouldn't be more than a few minutes." She pressed the torch into his hand, said, "You need this more than I do," and was gone.

He supposed she was right. After all, she'd be returning with several house-elves in tow. They could manage illuminating the cellars for her. The candles he'd brought with him kept the darkness at bay, but of course the light they cast wasn't as strong as that given off by the heavy-duty aluminum Muggle device he now held.

Just to test it, he pushed his finger against the switch. A bright bar of white light flashed across the chamber, illuminating the sacks of flour and unground grain stacked up against the wall. A rat paused for a few seconds in the middle of the floor, most likely blinded by the harsh beam that had just caught it. Then it scurried off into a far corner and disappeared.

For some reason, Snape found the presence of the rat to be vaguely heartening. Something else survived down here, at any rate. He wondered then what the creature in the seventh cellar actually ate.

A series of pops, and five house-elves, one of whom clutched Hermione by the arm, burst into the cellar. The other four supported a largish steel cage, one whose door appeared to be held shut by a simple sliding latch. Snape gave it a quick glance and murmured a silent word of thanks that Hermione had possessed the native intelligence to steal a cage without a lock.

She murmured a thank-you to the house-elf who had brought her here by side-along Apparition, then approached Snape. "They're willing to hold the cage if we're the ones to open the door."

House-elves were not known for their personal bravery. He hadn't expected any more of them. "That should do. I'll enter the chamber and herd the beast toward the cage. You be ready with the door."

It was hard to tell for sure in the cellar's chancy light, but her cheeks looked a little pale. "Must you? That is, perhaps there is some other way -- "

"There is no guarantee the creature will come into the cage if someone does not encourage it to do so. We know now that it is not dangerous in and of itself. However, there is still a chance it could knock one of us down as it tries to escape. Better that I, as the larger of us two, should be the one to go into the cellar."

He half expected her to argue further, but after a brief pause she nodded. "I don't like it, but I suppose you're right."

To be honest, he didn't like it much, either, but there was no point in delaying. He looked past her to the house-elves, who still flanked the cage. "Look sharp," he instructed them. "I will go into the seventh cellar, and Miss Granger will man the door. Hold the cage steady, and be prepared for the creature to put up a good amount of resistance to being put in the cage."

They all exchanged uneasy glances. But a house-elf would rather cut off its own hand than challenge a wizard master's direct order, so as one they tightened their grip on the cage and waited.

Nothing for it, then. He directed them to leave a bit of clearance between the door to the seventh cellar and the cage so that he could squeeze past. Then he put his hand on the cold iron handle and lifted the latch.


	8. Chapter 8

Final chapter! I'm sorry I took a bit longer to update than usual; things have been crazy-hectic the past few weeks. This is probably going to be my last HP story for awhile; at last count I'm at about a quarter of a million words regarding our dear Potions master, and I'm finding myself a bit burnt out. Thank you to everyone for your reviews -- there is an additional author's note at the end of this chapter that explains the origin of this particular piece.

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VIII

As before, at first all was darkness. Then brilliant golden light flared from behind him. Hermione must have asked the house-elves to provide some illumination.

There came that same slithering noise, and the creature reared up from behind a pile of sacks. Snape paused, staring at it in shock.

_But it's beautiful_, was his first coherent thought.

For it was. Caught in the flare of light the house-elves had conjured, its hide rippled with a wash of warm color, gold blending into orange and shading to deepest red, the hues changing with its every movement. A feather-like golden crest topped its narrow, arrow-shaped head.

No time to think after that, for it seemed to flow toward him, its yellow eyes slitted against the glare of magical light. He backed toward the cage, holding its gaze, compelling it to follow. A sharp blow to his shoulder as he backed into the door frame, but then he was past, the creature gliding in his wake, intent on him, apparently not seeing the cage that blocked the door. Perhaps it couldn't focus properly in the almost-blinding illumination cast by the house-elves' light spell.

He cried out, "Now, Hermione!"

And she flung the cage door shut, fingers working the latch. The beast let out a high-pitched shriek that sounded halfway between the cry of a diving hawk and a rabbit caught in a snare. Then it began to batter against the bars of the cage.

The house-elves let out little shrieks of their own and backed away.

"Stun the bloody thing!" he commanded, and one of them -- the one who had held Hermione's arm while they Apparated -- apparently recovered his wits enough to cast the spell.

At once the creature subsided in a coil of riotous color at the bottom of the cage. A white-faced Hermione darted past him and into the seventh cellar.

"What are you doing?" he demanded, turning back to the room he had just exited. He'd only made a few strides in her direction when she approached him once again, now cradling something in her arms.

"We couldn't leave it behind," she said. From the bulky folds of her dark coat something glowed red-gold.

"The egg?"

She nodded. "Although I've never seen an egg like this before. Not even one of Bill's dragon eggs."

At the mention of Ronald Weasley's brother, Snape felt his lips thin a bit, but he only said, "No wonder the creature reacted with such rage."

"Poor thing."

He wasn't sure if he felt quite ready to call a ten-foot crested snake-creature "poor thing," but Hermione had a soft-hearted streak strangely at odds with her hard-headed intellect. To his surprise, she reached out and deposited the egg in his arms. It was heavy and oddly soft, the surface feeling like very fine suede. He cast a mystified look in her direction, and she smiled.

"I can't very well hold the egg and drive the lorry, now, can I?"

***

The Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry had probably seen a good many odd things in its day, but Hermione guessed this was the first time within its hallowed halls that a group of house-elves had levitated a cage holding a sleeping beast into the bed of a lorry. Professor McGonagall watched the process with a bemused look on her face. Hermione wasn't sure what had flummoxed her more -- the odd crested snake, or the ancient Volvo.

"Are you sure this can't wait until morning?" the Headmistress inquired.

"It could," Hermione admitted, "but best to do it now. Besides, the clouds have blown away, and there's a wonderful moon. It will be quite safe."

Professor Snape finished his inspection of the straps that held the cage securely in the lorry's bed. "No point in delay, Minerva. We have the relocation site selected. And, as Miss Granger pointed out, we should be able to see well enough."

"I will trust your judgment, then," Professor McGonagall said.

Hermione pulled the lorry's keys out of her coat pocket and clambered into the cab. After one last tug of a strap, the Potions master opened the passenger door and climbed in. He cast a suspicious glance around the cramped compartment, and then, with an air of resignation, reached down to fasten his seat belt.

"It really is fine," Hermione said, and twisted the key in the ignition. The engine gave a raspy cough and then turned over.

"Of course it is," Professor Snape drawled.

Ignoring his comment, she shifted into low gear and carefully guided the vehicle through the castle's grounds and on out past the front gate. It really had turned into a fine night; a full moon blazed down from overhead, bathing the landscape in clear white light. It was much easier to make the return trip over the rough track that wound its way back to the main highway, and once there she accelerated to a good clip.

Her companion appeared little inclined to conversation. He stared forward through the windscreen, a frown etching a deep line between his brows. Something glinted from a fold of his robes -- the creature's egg, kept close and safe.

So many questions, and so few answers. The creature had had only the one egg, so their theory that these beasts were not particularly fecund seemed to be at least somewhat accurate. Why this one had come to Hogwarts Hermione had no idea, and the sleeping, snake-like being in the bed of the lorry didn't seem inclined to be giving up any of its secrets any time soon.

Hermione wished she could think of something clever and lighthearted to say, but somehow sitting so close to the Potions master in a confined space had effectively tied her tongue. A draft coming in through one of the windows ruffled the edges of his sooty hair, so different from Ron's bright carrot-top.

Finally Snape spoke. "You're certain of the direction."

Thank God. Something concrete she could discuss. "Yes. As much of a thieving scoundrel as the agency owner was, he did throw in some very good maps. We'll cut off from the main highway in approximately twenty kilometers, then wind along a secondary road for another fifteen. There's a valley where the road ends. I double-checked it against one of the library's maps, and there are supposed to be some deep caves there. It seems as good a place as any."

He gave a brief, abstracted nod and resumed staring out the window.

At that point the highway began to curve as it moved up through the hills. Hermione was grateful for the increased concentration the roadway required. It was much easier not to think about Severus Snape when she had to focus on their route, which was proving tricky, bright moonlight or no. She dropped her speed by about twenty-five kilometers per hour just to be on the safe side.

Good thing that she did, for she saw a patch of ice gleaming on the road a few meters ahead. She slowed even further and crossed it with no problem save a slight jerk as the tires slipped, and then caught. She gave a fleeting, sideways glance at Professor Snape. A narrowing of the eyes seemed to indicate \he had registered the stretch of treacherous road, but otherwise he remained still.

_Well, what did you expect?_ she thought. _For him to turn around and congratulate you on your driving skill?_

That was ridiculous, of course, so she tried her best from there on out to keep her gaze on the road and to ignore his presence. Easier said than done -- every time he shifted on the bench seat, she thought again of how close he was, and how alone they were together.

Alone, except for approximately twenty stone of stunned beast in the lorry's bed. The house-elves had sworn the creature would remain in a stupor for a good two hours or more, but Hermione had no desire to push the outer limits of that time frame.

She saw the small sign marking the turn-off for the next leg of the journey, and slowed even further to take the tight corner. Then it was more slow going as they bounced along a poorly maintained road that seemed barely wide enough to accommodate the lorry. She prayed they wouldn't encounter another vehicle coming in the opposite direction.

But no one else apparently was mad enough to venture out on this icy, moonlit night. They crested a hill and then began to descend into a small valley dotted with yew trees and gorse bushes, where a narrow stream glinted beneath the pale moon.

"Over there," she said. The lorry's high beams had picked out a series of dark openings in the hillside opposite: the caves that were their destination.

Professor Snape sat up a little straighter. "Try to get as close as you can."

No easy task, as the road dead-ended at the valley floor. They had to ford the little stream, but the water wouldn't have been more than calf-high even if she'd stood directly in it, and the Volvo chugged its way across without any fuss. But she worried about the sharp stones on either side of the stream bed, and what they might do to the tires. She had no choice, though -- they had to get in a position where the cage would be as close to the cave as possible. The two of them could probably carry it a few feet, but any more than that would tax their strength to the limit.

Odd how even she, who hadn't grown up in wizarding society, had begun to take her powers so very much for granted. No easy way out through levitating the cage as long as the beast was around. Too bad the house-elves couldn't have come along to help out, but they'd been vehemently opposed to that idea.

"Miles away, in Muggle territory?" one of them had exclaimed in horror. "Oh, no, you couldn't ask that of us."

The fear in his eyes had been enough to prevent her from making any further arguments. True, it appeared that house-elves were immune to the creature's magic-dispelling properties, but she'd realized that testing such a theory miles away from Hogwarts and from a safe haven for the elves wasn't very wise.

Hermione slowed almost to a halt, then carefully backed the lorry up until it could go no further -- there was a rocky outcropping right in the way.

"I'm not sure we're close enough," she began, but Severus shook his head.

"It's good enough." Then he pulled at the door handle and slid out of the cab, one hand still wrapped protectively around the egg he carried.

He did not go immediately to the cage, but instead picked his way across the rocky ground to the mouth of the cave. After a brief hesitation, Hermione unbuckled her own seatbelt and followed him. The ground shifted treacherously beneath her feet, and she felt her ankle twinge. But the sturdy shoes she'd put on helped her to avoid any mishaps, and soon enough she was standing next to Severus in the cave.

As caves went, it was a good one -- wide and with a nice hard floor with not too many rocks. She watched as he knelt and placed the egg on the ground, then stood once more.

"Time for a reunion, I think," he said.

Something in his tone sounded a bit odd, but when she glanced up at him, his face was blank and expressionless. Or perhaps it was only the wash of white moonlight that shone through the cave opening.

By way of reply, she turned from him and made her way back to the lorry. The latch on the bed's gate was stiff, and she struggled with it for a few seconds before she felt his hands push hers away. He wore no gloves, and his fingers felt warmer than they should be, given the icy night.

But then he had the gate open. "Ready?"

She wasn't sure how much of the burden she'd be able to carry -- after all, she'd always concentrated on developing her mind, not her muscles -- but she knew she had to try. And really, it was only a few meters. Hardly anything at all.

She nodded.

"Now!"

And they slid the cage out from the bed of the lorry. The weight of cage and creature combined was enough to feel as if her arms were being yanked out of their sockets, but she hung grimly on, staggering her way up the twenty paces or so that separated them from the cave. She wouldn't think about the ache in her back and her biceps, or the way the metal of the cage was cutting into her bare fingers. None of that mattered. All that did matter was giving this strange creature its freedom in a safe place.

Then they were there, Severus guiding the cage to its resting place. He opened the door, but the creature didn't stir.

"Do you think it's all right?"

"I certainly hope so, especially after all this." He sounded almost grimly amused, as if he thought the final irony would be for them to discover the beast had perished after all their labors to get it here.

She didn't dare entertain such a notion. A sudden idea struck her, and she went to the spot where he had secured the egg, then lifted it up. Holding it before her like a sacred chalice, she went to the cage, then placed it under the creature's nose.

A sudden flash of gleaming gold. Its eyes opened, and it let out a little whine.

"You're safe," she said, in tones she hoped were reassuring. "And here is your egg." She backed away from the cage, still holding the egg before her.

With a small groan that reminded Hermione of the sort of noise Ron would make when he first dragged himself out of bed in the morning, the creature began to slither out of the cage. Although she was fairly certain it meant her no real harm, she didn't much like the idea of being between it and its egg. So she knelt and placed the egg on the floor of the cave, then sidled away.

Without a second glance in her direction, the creature moved at once toward its egg, then curled around it. The beast's glowing colors were muted by the pale moonlight, but it seemed as if it had turned a warm, rich gold all over, the odd variations in hue suddenly gone.

"Well done," said Severus. "Now all we have to do is get this blasted cage back in that sorry excuse for a vehicle you rented."

She didn't bother to reply, but came around to the side of the cage opposite from him and wrapped her hand around the bars. It was much easier to lift sans occupant, and they were able to return it to the bed of the lorry without too much trouble.

Once the cage was loaded, however, Severus seemed oddly reluctant to get back into the lorry. He hesitated outside, studiously not looking at her. Then he spoke.

"It seems you'll have your Christmas after all."

For a second she could only stare at him, wondering what he was going on about. Then she realized that they had somehow managed to solve the mystery and remove the creature from Hogwarts in enough time for her to return to London and spend the holiday with her family.

For some reason that prospect didn't seem appealing at all. She paused, wondering what she could say without sounding like a complete fool. Then Snape finally did stare down into her face. She had no idea what he saw in her own visage, but she caught a glimpse of something she'd never expected to see in his expression -- need, compounded with a sort of terrible hope.

Something inside her seemed to turn over. It wasn't possible…was it?

"I think," she said, speaking carefully and making sure her eyes never left his, "that I'd rather spend Christmas at Hogwarts with you."

He didn't move. He only stood there, still watching her with that careful black gaze.

Then, miraculously, he smiled.

* * *

**AN:** This story was written from a prompt by renitaleandra over at LiveJournal. Here is the original prompt: _A new mystery has unfolded at Hogwarts and Hermione (a member of Magical Law Enforcement) and Snape (a dark arts expert and former headmaster) are asked to jointly investigate the matter. During the investigation they fall for one another and by the conclusion of this tale it should be clear that they both have plans on seeing one another in the future._ Just thought I should include that for those of you who were wondering why this story ends on a somewhat tentative note. The requirements for the story were only that it be at least 1,500 words, and as you can see, I did go over that by about, hmm, 27,000 words. ;-)


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